The proposed legislation, however, allows for certain exceptions such as miners, participants in mining pools, and projects carried out by the “Bank of Russia” under an experimental legal regime.
Entities involved in cryptocurrency circulation are defined as Russian or foreign legal entities and their representative offices, as well as individuals who spend at least 183 days in the country within a consecutive 12-month period (in other words, full-fledged Russian tax residents).
The bill also seeks to ban all forms of cryptocurrency advertising and promotion of cryptocurrency circulation in the country.
Currently, existing laws in Russia prohibit settlements between individuals and/or legal entities using cryptocurrencies, but there is no specific prohibition on the “organization of circulation” in any form.
This revised bill is an updated version of bill No. 237585-8, which was introduced in November 2022 with the aim of regulating mining activities. However, the previous version failed to proceed past the initial reading. In February 2024, the authors of the bill made another attempt, but on April 19, the Financial Market Committee decided to send the text for revision. On Friday, April 26, a new version of the bill was presented to Vyacheslav Volodin, Chairman of the State Duma.
The group of 16 deputies responsible for both the previous and current versions of the bill includes influential individuals such as Anatoly Aksakov, Chairman of the Financial Market Committee; Arkady Svistunov, Deputy Chairman of the Committee; Anton Gorelkin, Deputy Chairman of the Information Policy Committee; Andrei Lugovoy, First Deputy Chairman of the Security Committee, and former Minister of Agriculture Alexey Gordeev, among others.
In early April, Anatoly Aksakov, the key proponent of the bill, expressed frustration that progress was being hindered by one particular agency. He pledged that the project would definitely become law by August.