Bank of Russia proposes to tax bitcoin as digital commodity

Maria Nikolova

The documents for the taxation of crypto-currencies, including bitcoin, will be ready in a month, says the Russian central bank.

Bitcoin is about to gain some official status in Russia, at least in terms of taxes. According to a report by news information agency RIA Novosti, bitcoin will be taxed as a digital commodity, under proposals outlined by the Bank of Russia.

Olga Skorobogatova, Deputy Governor at the central bank, said the “megaregulator” will present draft legislative documents for the taxation of crypto-currencies, including bitcoin, in a month.

She noted that the topic had been discussed with a number of ministries and institutions, including the Russian Ministry of Finance. The proposal has been backed by all of them, Ms Skorobogatova said.

This statement comes amid growing chatter about the need to regulate crypto-currencies in Russia. In April 2017, Russia’s Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev said Russia was likely to recognize crypto-currencies as legal in 2018, but soon after that Maxim Grigoriev, Chief of the Centre for Financial Technologies at the Bank of Russia, noted that it was too early to talk of legalization of crypto-currencies in Russia.

Moreover, there are growing concerns about the rising number of financial scams involving bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Marat Safiulin, who heads the Federal Public-State Foundation for the Protection of Investor and Shareholder Rights, has forecast that the number of such fraudulent schemes will increase further and that oversight of the crypto-currencies trading has to be tightened.

In the meantime, Russian institutions are warming up to blockchain. Russia’s prime minister Dmitry Medvedev has joined the ranks of the supporters of distributed ledger technologies. He has instructed the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and the Ministry of Economic Development to explore the possible applications of blockchain technology in several economic areas. Earlier this month, speaking at the VII St. Petersburg International Legal Forum, Mr Medvedev said that the main moments of regulating blockchain and related distributed ledger technologies (DLT) should be clear by the time blockchain enters in various areas of life. He admitted, however, that blockchain is in its essence an autonomous system.

Read this next

Retail FX

Prop firm The Funded Trader shuts down, claims relaunch in April

Prop trading firm The Funded Trader has ceased all operations, with claims for a relaunch in the near future.

Digital Assets

Ethereum-Based Tokenized Real Estate Platform USP Launches On Republic

How This Californian Startup Is Revolutionizing Real Estate Investment through Ethereum-Based Tokenization.

Digital Assets

Sui Spikes in Weekly DEX Volume, Joins Top 10 of All Blockchains

March DEX volume on Sui stands at over $2.88B – up more than 49% from February – with decentralized exchange Cetus and wholesale liquidity layer DeepBook leading.

Digital Assets

Prisma Finance suffers $10 million crypto exploit, attack ongoing

Liquid staking protocol Prisma Finance fell victim to a security exploit on March 28, resulting in nearly $10 million in Prisma mkUSD and wrapped stETH being stolen by hackers.

Digital Assets

Masa and LayerZero: Bridging Blockchains for Data Sovereignty

Masa Network is poised to revolutionize the personal data landscape with its upcoming launch as a cross-chain platform, making it accessible on a variety of blockchains right from the start.

Digital Assets

Big Time Generates over $100M in Revenue since Preseason

Innovative game developer Big Time Studios announces that its highly anticipated free-to-play multiplayer action/MMO RPG Big Time, has generated $100M in revenue. According to the team, players transacted a total volume of over $230M, without selling a single token.

Digital Assets

Centralized exchanges are 10 times more popular than DEXs in Western Europe

Western European traders are found to prefer centralized exchanges over decentralized ones as CEX traffic outpaces DEXs by a factor of ten.

Market News

Stock Market Analysis: Is NVDA Losing Its Leadership?

Since the beginning of the week, the S&P 500 Index (US500) has seen a modest increase of about 0.58%, whereas NVDA’s share price has experienced a decline of approximately 3.8%. This recent divergence raises concerns among Nvidia stock investors — could it signify a loss of NVDA’s market leadership?

Industry News

ESG: Australian regulator wins first greenwashing court case against Vanguard

Vanguard admitted that a notable portion of the securities within both the Index and the Fund did not undergo the promised ESG scrutiny.

<