Breaking: Putin bans Payment with Digital Assets in Russia.
On Friday, the 15th day of July 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that prevents the use of digital assets as a mode of payment in Russia.
The bill will make it illegal to transfer or accept;
digital financial assets as consideration for transferred goods, performed works, or rendered services, as well as in any other way that allows one to assume payment for goods (works, services) by a digital financial asset unless federal laws say otherwise.
This law effectively bans using crypto or NFTs as forms of payment.
Anatoly Aksakov, head of the State Duma's Committee on Financial Markets, brought the bill to the legislature in June. On Friday, Putin signed the bill into law. A part of the new law states that crypto exchanges and providers must turn down transactions where digital assets are used to make payments.
There have been disagreements within the Russian government about how to regulate crypto. Different agencies don't agree on whether to ban crypto outright or just regulate it. In January, the Central Bank of Russia gave an order to the Ministry of Finance to ban crypto, but the Ministry of Finance responded to the order;
Regulation is enough to protect our citizens.
Russia will Enforce the new Law in 10 days' time.
The new legislation will become effective ten days after registration with the government gazette of Russia. Concerning the possibility of exemptions in its application, the RBC report says that Russian lawyers have already pointed out some controversies with the document.
Some speculate that Russian companies or firms under sanctions could assess crypto to get around the sanctions that were in place after Russia invaded Ukraine. But officials have shown that they know how to use on-chain analytics to track transactions, and experts in the field have warned that those who want to get around sanctions shouldn't try to use cryptocurrencies. Even specific crypto wallet addresses have been added to sanctions lists by U.S. and EU organizations.
