Russia Introduces New Regulations Targeting Crypto Used For Bribery
One of the leading regulative regimes in the sphere of digital currencies would Russia, who although has partly analogous incentives with its Chinese and European counterparts, claims its own unique touch on the matter, considering all cryptocurrency laws in the country are based on exessive research with a good understanding of the underlying distributed ledger technology behind each case.
A recent report sourced by the Federal Security Service (FSB), formerly known as KGB, suggests that Russia plans on introducing a series of laws, subjecting crypto ownership handling when it comes to suspicious or flagged transactions.
Unlike most popular regulations that want crypto as a form of currency or securities, Russia labels cryptocurrencies as “digital rights”, suggesting that essentially a distributed ledger network and your relation to it through wallets, exchanges, etc, is a ledger of rights that indicates what you’re eligible for and what is not yours.
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The Russian Supreme Court who supervised the ruling cited that since cryptocurrencies can be used in illegal activities such as bribes, they should be considered similar to fiat currencies, property and other physical and digital assets that could empower a bribery process, adding that the value of crypto used in such activities should be determined during the time of the transaction and must be considered as a bribery equivalent to the value of the crypto in question.
It is not secret cryptocurrencies are being used largely among darknet users and malicious netizens due to cryptos’ pseudonymity, global reach, and instant settlement times which come at a relatively low cost.
Of course, not all cryptocurrency users are by default involved in illicit activities in any case, yet governments across the world had developed numerous ways to track down, assess and link crypto assets to their respective owners and activity that might not have the financial background to support its origin will be further investigated in most cases in order to fight cyber money laundering.
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While the U.S. is one of the least educated countries when it comes to blockchain technology, based on the plagiarism used by different state laws originating from acts introduced by a couple of states, countries such as Russia, Switzerland, and China, have their own approach, examining each use-case involving DLTs, and/or digital currencies on its own depth of detail.
Obviously, some universal laws apply in Russia as well, including the fact that you will be taxed on your crypto assets as soon as you redeem them for local central bank fiat currencies.
We have previously covered how deep the Russian Federation is into blockchain, and an analogous piece can be found about SEC’s approach on the matter.
How deep is your country into DLTs? Do you have some unique laws un-touched by other countries? Let me know in the comments below or feel free to hit me up on Twitter.
