Upper House of Russian Parliament OKs Cryptocurrency Mining
13:09 GMT 02.08.2024 (Updated: 16:58 GMT 02.08.2024)
© Sputnik / Alexei Danichev
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MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The upper house of the Russian parliament voted on Friday to legalize cryptocurrency mining in Russia starting November 1, 2024.
The bill sets out conditions for cryptocurrency mining. Only Russian legal entities and individual entrepreneurs registered by the Digital Development Ministry will be allowed to "mine" digital coins above the energy consumption limit.
The senators voted in the second reading to lift a ban on the circulation of digital currencies in Russia and introduce a ban on crypto advertising. This ban will take effect as soon as the bill becomes law.
Individual entrepreneurs will be prohibited from "mining" cryptocurrencies if convicted for any of a range of financial crimes, felonies, terrorism, extremism, or crimes committed against the state. Legal entities found to have ex-convicts among their founders, beneficiaries or management will likewise be barred from mining.
The bill will oblige cryptocurrency miners to release their production data and share it with a designated agency, which will pass this information on to the Bank of Russia and the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring (Rosfinmonitoring).
The upper house has also passed a bill, allowing cryptocurrency cross-border payments and exchange trading as legal experiments from September 1, 2024.
The Bank of Russia will be able to create an electronic platform for transactions in digital currencies on the basis of Russia's National Payment Card System and establish the rules for its operation, as well as the requirements for the activities of its operator.
