Russia’s Expobank has, for the first time in the country’s history, arranged a bank loan secured by tokens, according to a press release.
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The loan was extended to entrepreneur Mikhail Uspensky under an individual banking loan agreement. During structuring, an escrow mechanism was used.
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Uspensky told ForkLog that he had long been eyeing the DeFi segment. In his view, the best results can be achieved by merging it with the traditional financial world.
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“I had a certain amount of Waves tokens [secured by them — ed.], I understood the advantages of staking them, but this month I needed fiat funds in Russia. After weighing the pros and cons, it was decided to turn to a Russian bank,” he said.
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According to Yuri Brisov, founder of LFCS, who proposed the legal model for the deal, the most difficult part was convincing bankers that tokens can be legally used in Russia.
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He also said that a notary participated in the deal, through whom the deposit was carried out.
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Alexander Zhuravlev, managing partner of the law firm EBR, who accompanied the deal, noted that the tokens used as collateral “clearly fall under the definition of other property.”
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“At present, the parties to the deal had to rely on the Civil Code’s basic property regulation, but in the near future it will become possible to apply the special norms of legislation on digital financial assets,” said ForkLog senior tax practice lawyer Dmitry Kirillov of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP and lecturer at Moscow Digital School.
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In July, Russia enacted the law \”On Digital Financial Assets.\” It regulates the handling of digital assets, as well as the turnover of cryptocurrencies within the country.
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