Deputy urges NFT marketplaces to establish offices in Russia

The largest NFT marketplaces should open their offices in Russia to operate legally on the territory of the country. This was said by Anton Gorelkin, deputy chairman of the State Duma committee on information policy, information technology and communications.

In current Russian law, the notion of “non-fungible token” is absent. The term “token” appears in the law “On Digital Financial Assets.” However, according to the deputy, its description “even formally does not correspond to the NFTs that are currently traded on marketplaces.”

“At the same time, in the opinion of many lawyers, non-fungible tokens cannot be called securities or digital currencies either. In essence, their definition is closer to ‘digital certificates of ownership’,” wrote Gorelkin.

He added that, at present, the legal status of NFTs is determined exclusively by the rules of the platform that issues them. Moreover, in January 2022 the trading volume of non-fungible tokens reached $6.86 billion, therefore the authorities in Russia cannot ignore this market segment and must develop its regulation.

“I believe that, as with cryptocurrency exchanges, the largest NFT marketplaces should fall under the law “On Landing” – only then can the state protect the rights of Russian owners of expensive NFTs in case of disputed situations,” noted the deputy.

Earlier, in September 2021, the State Hermitage through the Binance NFT marketplace sold tokens representing paintings from its own collection for more than 32 million rubles.

Earlier, representatives of major exchanges told ForkLog that they were ready to open branches on the territory of Russia, provided that this would contribute to user convenience and the safety of operations.

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