The State Duma has adopted a bill on cryptocurrency mining, according to the lower house's website.
It was introduced at the end of 2022. The bill defines mining and proposes the creation of a «register of mining infrastructure operators» and a «register of persons mining digital currency.»
Miners who do not register there will be allowed to mine cryptocurrency if they «do not exceed the energy consumption limits» set by the government. The government will be able to ban mining in certain territories and in specific regions. In the event of a violation, a person may be disconnected from the network by a court decision.
The amendments propose a ban on advertising cryptocurrencies.
Initially, the project also included a ban on the organization of digital currency circulation within Russia, which included crypto exchanges and crypto exchangers. It was assumed that the cryptocurrency mined by Russian miners could be sold on foreign platforms or within the framework of an «experimental legal regime» in Russia.
The Dossier Investigative Center drew attention to the fact that the family of one of the authors of the initiative, Andrei Lugovoi, owns a crypto exchanger in Moscow City.
By the second reading, the ban on cryptocurrency circulation in Russia was lifted. At the same time, another bill, introduced in April and also adopted today in the final third reading, describes the introduction of an «experimental legal regime» for the use of stablecoins in payments under foreign trade agreements. The Central Bank will have to create a service for this. According to its head Elvira Nabiullina, the first such payments will be made before the end of the year.
At the beginning of 2022, the Central Bank proposed to completely ban financial transactions with cryptocurrency on the Russian market, but after the start of the war in Ukraine and the tightened sanctions, it changed its rhetoric and, together with the Ministry of Digital Development, began to consider the possibility of legalizing international settlements in cryptocurrencies.
Or a complete cessation of cryptocurrency operations in Russia. Why the Central Bank decided to ban bitcoins