The Central Bank has prepared amendments for the second reading of the bill on cryptocurrency market regulation. One of the important points is that advertising of services by legal financial intermediaries will be allowed, but with a restriction: advertisements will not be able to use the names of specific cryptocurrencies, such as "bitcoin" or "ethereum".
The Bank of Russia explains this with caution: digital currencies remain a high-risk asset. This means that a company will be able to promote its services, but not turn advertising into the promotion of individual coins.
The bill should create an official framework for working with cryptocurrencies. Transactions can only be carried out through licensed participants – exchanges, brokers, trustees, digital depositories, and crypto exchangers. There will be no restrictions on the amount for qualified investors, and for ordinary citizens, a limit of up to 300 thousand rubles per year through one intermediary is planned.
A separate license is planned for crypto exchangers. The Central Bank believes that this will help participants in the gray market to legalize faster. Digital depositories will play a special role: they will keep records of cryptocurrencies and monitor risks associated with illegal operations.
The Ministry of Finance also proposes to strengthen user protection. In particular, to change the model of storing FNS data on citizen identification addresses and to introduce a cooling-off period when withdrawing funds through a digital depository.
At the same time, there are still no plans to use cryptocurrency as a means of payment within Russia. An exception is planned only for certain operations of miners: commissions in mining pools can be accrued in the cryptocurrency they mine.
The Ministry of Finance expects to adopt the bill by the end of June. After that, the Central Bank and the government will have to prepare about 50 by-laws for the full launch of regulation.
