Russian Crypto Mining Bill Stalled

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Source: Prokop.photo/Adobe

Russia’s bill to legalize cryptocurrency mining ran into a last-minute hurdle, and progress on the bill is now “stalled”, the country’s finance ministry has acknowledged.

According to Finmarket, the country’s Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev told reporters on Wednesday that the long-awaited bill – which proposes to legalize and tax industrial crypto mining – had encountered another late hurdle. .

Lawmakers largely agree with the bill. And they had hoped to accelerate his progress in the State Duma, the Russian parliament, in December. Some had spoken optimistically of the entry into force of the law on 1 January. This was later pushed back to February 1.

But while most MPs backed the bill, which they say will help raise much-needed funds from the Treasury, the Central Bank has been less eager to give its approval.

Moiseev was quoted as saying:

“We stalled again. There are objections, not only from the Central Bank, but also from law enforcement. Several meetings are planned on this subject. It’s not that everyone has given up. We hope to reach an agreement. »

What last-minute “objections” derailed the Russian mining bill?

The chief architect of the bill, the chairman of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, Anatoly Aksakov, suggested that “one of the participants in the discussion” raised late objections.

The Central Bank wants miners to sell their coins immediately after acquiring them and does not want “private cryptocurrencies” like bitcoin (BTC) to “enter the Russian economy.”

But it seems the police or other law enforcement agencies are opposed to the idea – and fear that such a system is open to easy abuse.

Aksakov said “one participant” in the talks “had suspicions that sales channels” that would be used by crypto miners “could be used to illegally withdraw funds overseas.”

The head of the committee said he “would not name the organization that slowed the movement of the bill.” But he added that this “organization” fears that crypto miners will end up “withdrawing capital from Russia”.

The bill, in its current form, states that miners can either exchange their coins for fiat on “foreign crypto exchanges” or through an experimental state-run crypto trading platform. This platform should be legislated in a separate bill.

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