The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation wants to legalize and de-anonymize Bitcoin until 2018

Just a year and a half ago, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation proposed imprisoning for using Bitcoins for up to four years. Although the initiative of the Ministry of Finance, as amended by the Criminal Code, was supported by the Ministry of Economic Development and all power structures, the bill did not pass. And over the past time, the position of the Ministry of Finance has changed to the opposite, in exact accordance with the well-known slogan “If lawlessness cannot be stopped, you need to lead it!”.



In an interview with Bloomberg, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev said that the regulator is counting on the legalization of Bitcoin operations in 2018. This is necessary for the sole purpose - to clearly identify users.



“The state should know who at each moment of time stands on both sides of the financial chain,” said Moiseyev. “If a transaction occurs, its participants should understand who they buy from and sell to whom, as well as in banking transactions.”



Now the Ministry of Finance is coordinating its position on cryptocurrencies with other interested departments, the press service said.

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The Bank of Russia has been fighting money laundering for many years. The problem is very serious: according to the Global Financial Integrity company in Washington, from 1994 to 2011, at least $ 211.5 billion was withdrawn from Russia in the framework of criminal schemes, bribes and tax evasion - the country was literally devastated. In the framework of the fight against criminal schemes, the Bank of Russia over the past years has deprived hundreds of “pocket” banks of licenses. As a result, the volume of fake transactions and money laundering loans with a withdrawal abroad in 2016 dropped to a record low of $ 771 million.







But rejoice early. There is reason to believe that more advanced mechanisms that are outside the purview of the Central Bank are now being used to launder money with the withdrawal abroad. Cryptocurrencies are one such mechanism. For accounting and control of cryptocurrency, the Central Bank has previously expressed its position that digital currencies should be officially recognized as assets, cash or securities.



In December 2016, the head of the department, Director of the Department of Financial Technologies, Projects and Organization of Bank of Russia processes, Vadim Kalukhov, said that too strict measures to regulate cryptocurrency are ineffective because they only force out transactions outside of Russia, so that they will become more difficult to control. At the same time, he noted that the total value of all cryptocurrencies released in the world now does not exceed $ 15 billion. Obviously, this is too little for the scale of thefts and withdrawals of capital that are observed in Russia.



In February 2017, the Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia Olga Skorobogatova expressed the opinion that the state should control the issuance of electronic currencies : “All regulators have concluded that if we talk about electronic currency, we should speak of it as a national currency. When the issue is controlled, when the players understand who is behind this, when the risks are weighed, and when customers and citizens absolutely clearly understand that this is guaranteed by the state, ”the Central Bank said.