A summary of Russia’s official announcement on cryptocurrency regulation. TL;DR: It doesn’t ever mention BTC.

So last day or so there are a flood of posts saying Russia is considering BTC as a currency, leading to the idea that people will be able to use it as a tender or something else. I dug into the [official announcement](https://ift.tt/gLZ8P31) and therefore bring a summary here, with excerpts translated directly from the original document, with some highlighted parts by myself.

**Premises**

1. There is no legislative regulation of such a high-risk financial instrument as digital currency (cryptocurrency);
2. In recent years there has been a significant increase in funds of citizens of the Russian Federation invested in cryptocurrencies (12 million wallets, ~2 trillion rubles i.e. ~20 billion in USD);
3. The Russian Federation ranks 3rd in the world in terms of global mining capacities;
4. The establishment of rules for the circulation of cryptocurrencies and control measures will allow minimize the threat to the stability of the financial system and reduce the use of cryptocurrencies for illegal purposes.

**Goals and objectives**

1. Main goal is the integration of the mechanism of circulation of digital currencies into the financial system and ensuring *control over cash flows*;
2. To protect the rights and interests of investors, it is proposed to *divide them into skilled and unskilled*;
3. Platforms will be required to have liquidity and capital adequacy;
4. The legal framework will bring the industry out of the shadows and create an opportunity for carrying out legal business activities;
5. A legal market will contribute to the emergence of new participants in economic activities that pay taxes and insurance contributions, which will lead to an increase in budget revenues.

**Key initiatives proposed as regulation**

1. Amendments to the legislation introducing “digital financial assets”, the system in which they will be run, exchange operators etc.;
2. Requirements of the system: (a) a bank with universal license, to run people’s and company’s accounts, (b) a State-run service called “Transparent Blockchain”, to monitor *all* transactions, such as identifying wallets in the internet and darknet etc.;
3. **Data required: identification of user, such as device used, name, address, date of birth, e-mail address, phone number, device phone number, username, password, bank account number, expiration date and CVC code of the card used for acquisition of virtual assets, copies of identity documents, such as passports data, driver’s license; date, time, amount and currencies used in transactions**.
4. Additionally: control of the movement of funds accompanying the transaction with digital currency, **including when the client interacts with foreign digital currency exchanges**;
5. Additionally: storage of information about the transaction for at least 5 years;
6. Additionally: providing data at the request of authorized authorities in in the manner prescribed by applicable law;

**Exchange rights and requirements**

1. Process, store, alienate data, funds etc. of transactions;
2. Be a Russian institution register at the government for operations; ;
3. Other than that, the regular you have in other countries.

**Some (not all) requirements for foreign exchanges operating on Russia**

1. The presence of a representative office of the exchange on the territory of Russia;
2. Availability of technical integration with the system of the Russian organizer digital currency exchange systems;
3. The existence of an agreement with the organizer of the digital currency exchange system;

——–

These are the main points, I guess. Nor BTC nor any other coin/token is ever mentioned in the document. If you can’t read Russian, just throw it in a translator.

I guess the media spreading the news that BTC is being considered as currency is just clickbait.

As they say, *buy the rumors, sell the news*.

Godspeed to you all.

TL;DR: BTC is never mentioned, the document only states what can be expected from regulation and, as most of us already knew, users will have no privacy whatsoever.

View Reddit by reddito321 – View Source