Russian Duma Committee Endorses Cryptocurrency Mining Regulation Bill

On July 12, the Russian State Duma Committee on Financial Markets recommended that the lower house of parliament adopt a bill on the regulation of mining activities in its first reading. This was reported by TASS.

The State Duma is expected to review the document on July 23.

The current version of the mining bill was introduced in late April.

According to its provisions, Russian legal entities and individual entrepreneurs included in the relevant registry will be allowed to engage in digital currency mining.

Individuals will be permitted to conduct such activities without being listed in the registry, provided they adhere to government-established energy consumption limits.

The Ministry of Digital Development will oversee compliance with these requirements. The government is proposed to establish the procedure for maintaining the registry through a regulatory act.

The bill requires miners to report to the tax authorities on the digital currencies mined, specifying the address of crediting for monitoring by Rosfinmonitoring, and grants the government the right to prohibit this business in certain regions.

Mining activities are prohibited from being combined with activities related to the electricity sector.

The bill includes measures to control the circulation of digital currencies, including preventing their use for money laundering or financing terrorism.

The document allows for the sale of digital currencies mined without using Russian information infrastructure.

It directly prohibits the organization of digital currency circulation within Russia, as well as bans advertising or offering digital currencies, or goods (works, services) for organizing issuance, to an unlimited audience.

“The adoption of the bill will establish legal practice, which will also contribute to further comprehensive regulation of issues related to the issuance and circulation of digital currencies,” the explanatory note states.

Earlier in July, media reported on a proposal by the Russian Ministry of Finance to open access to digital currency trading for qualified investors.

According to the feedback on the bill regarding digital currency settlements within the experimental legal regime (ELR), digital currency settlements for participants in foreign economic activity can be allowed under general regulation rather than special regulation. For this, digital currency needs to be recognized as a currency value.

In 2022, the Moscow Exchange or the SPB Exchange were proposed as service centers for conducting international settlements in digital assets. Meanwhile, the government began developing a mechanism for conducting such operations.

At that time, it also became known that Russian companies were already conducting cross-border payments using cryptocurrencies. Transactions are reportedly carried out “in limited volumes” for settlements with unfriendly countries.