The Ministry of Finance suspends the promotion of relevant bans, and Russia's Bitcoin has a gap for development

Source: Financial Home

Bitcoin has been a thorn in Russia's side for a long time. Since cryptocurrencies cannot be controlled by the government and banks, they feel that Bitcoin will become a new means of committing criminal activities. But now it seems that this thinking is changing. The Russian Ministry of Finance has temporarily shelved the ban on Bitcoin digital currency, which is a favorable result for Russian Bitcoin enthusiasts.

Financial House reported on October 13 that Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev said that with the development of Bitcoin in Russia and the adoption of the current exchange rate, Bitcoin is no longer a threat to the Russian financial ecosystem. Therefore, the Russian Ministry of Finance plans to shelve the ban on digital currencies indefinitely.

Alexei Moiseev, deputy minister of the Russian Ministry of Finance, said that in the past two years, there have been rumors that Russia would ban the trading of virtual assets such as Bitcoin, and that trading Bitcoin is illegal. Last year, there was even news that the Russian Ministry of Finance proposed that users who participated in Bitcoin trading would face up to four years in prison, but this proposal has not yet been included in the law or enforced. However, the Russian Ministry of Finance has now changed its tone and stated that digital currency is no longer a threat to the Russian financial system.

At the time, Moiseev considered Bitcoin and digital currencies to be “alternative currencies” — a term that still exists today — and there were rumors last year and even recently that Russia would introduce a law to ban Bitcoin. However, the bill never took shape.

In a recent commentary published by Russia’s Sputnik News, Moiseev said that all of this (Bitcoin) does not pose a great danger to the public because its scale is not large enough to pose a threat to our financial system.

He then added that in the future, Bitcoin could grow without regulation.

Moiseev’s comments are in stark contrast to those made by Alexander Bastrykin, chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee, who said that Bitcoin is “a real threat to financial stability” in Russia. Officials have subsequently stated that the development of Bitcoin and alternative currencies should be restricted.

The long road to Bitcoin’s demise

Moiseev and the Finance Ministry initially proposed a law late last year that could subject Bitcoin users to up to four years in prison in order to implement a new criminal code amendment. But the Ministry of Finance later backed down, proposing a two-year “educational labor” penalty for Bitcoin users earlier this year, which would include criminal detention and forced labor.

However, in March this year, the Ministry of Finance announced that it would conduct further strict reviews and recommended seven years of criminal detention and huge fines for Bitcoin users and companies.

Bitcoin Ban Bill

In April, the Ministry of Finance’s plan to accelerate the Bitcoin ban proposal ran into trouble again. Critics criticized the draft submitted for being incomplete and the draft had to be revised several times. At the time, Moiseev said:

"While work on the bill is moving forward, it's slow. Everyone who has read the bill has stressed that the wording must be clarified. So we're going to continue to improve it."

Then in May of this year, when the resubmitted version of the draft was reviewed by the Russian Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, they questioned the "public danger" that Bitcoin might bring, as raised by the Ministry of Finance.

Just a few days later, the Ministry of Justice again rejected the revised draft submitted by the Ministry of Finance.

The continued friction and lack of support appears to have seriously affected the Treasury Department’s progress, and it was finally forced to admit in August that the Bitcoin ban bill, while ready, would not be implemented anytime soon.

Thanks to the news, Moscow has welcomed the country's first digital currency exchange. The Bitcoin exchange is jointly operated by a group of Bitcoin enthusiasts and provides 24-hour offline digital currency trading services. Currently, the exchange only provides "one-way" trading services, that is, users can sell Bitcoin, which is privately operated by the exchange. The service of buying Bitcoin is still not available. If successful, the team plans to officially register the exchange service so that there is no need to worry about related legal issues.

More notably, Moiseev said: “Perhaps, from the point of view of technological development, a ban on Bitcoin may not bring good results.”

Bitcoin ban put on hold

Back to the present, Moiseev revealed that the Ministry of Finance has shelved its proposal to ban Bitcoin and digital currencies.

Moiseev said the suspension of the Bitcoin ban was because regulators wanted to learn from how other countries regulate digital currencies.

He said, we plan to wait and see how things develop...