Russian State Duma Adopts Law Banning Payments With Digital Financial Assets

The lower house of Russian parliament has adopted a law prohibiting the use of digital financial assets in payments. To implement the restriction, exchange operators have been obliged to reject transactions which make it possible to employ these assets as a means of payment.

Russian Parliament Approves Legislation Preventing Digital Financial Asset Payments

The majority in the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s Federal Assembly, has supported the adoption of a bill banning payments for goods and services using digital financial assets (DFAs) within the Russian Federation.

Under current Russian legislation, DFAs is the only legal term that can apply to cryptocurrencies, until lawmakers review and adopt the dedicated draft law “On Digital Currency,” designed to more comprehensively regulate the crypto space. The ban also affects utilitarian digital rights, or tokens.

The measure will be implemented by obliging platform operators, such as exchanges, to refuse to process DFA transactions facilitating digital asset payments. Token issuers and investment platform operators should also make it impossible for their clients to change records of DFAs when making transactions with them, Forklog reported, quoting the document.

However, the restrictions may not apply to some payments with utility tokens that are regulated by other federal laws, or if certain transactions are envisaged in the original agreement for the acquisition of the respective digital right, the report notes.

The new legislation also classifies DFA platform operators as subjects of Russia’s national payment system. That means they must be added to a special register maintained by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR).

While opinions on how to treat cryptocurrencies vary among institutions in Moscow, there is a general consensus that the ruble, and its digital incarnation, should remain the only legal tender in the Russian Federation. However, the Bank of Russia has recently signaled it could back the legalization of crypto payments for international settlements.

Officials hope that the newly adopted law, which was submitted to the Duma in mid-June, will eliminate the risks of using DFAs as “money surrogates.” Another piece of legislation, that’s still under review, aims to introduce administrative liability for the illegal issuance and exchange of digital financial assets.

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