Russia Adopts Bill Aimed to Provide Domestic Crypto Legislation in Second Reading

Russia’s parliament has adopted in the second reading the bill “On Digital Financial Assets,” aimed at formulating national cryptocurrency legislation, according to a statement published on the parliament’s website on Tuesday, March 5.

The State Duma, Russia’s parliament, has adopted amendments to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation on digital rights, which provides a regulatory framework in the field of the digital economy.

The bill, “On Digital Financial Assets” — approved in a first reading by the State Duma back in May — has given rise to a lot of discussion within the Russian legal discourse.

Today’s second reading adoption had been preceded by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address to the government made last week to hasten the adoption of  digital assets regulation by July 2019.

Vyacheslav Volodin, the Chairman of the State Duma and coauthor of the draft bill, has stressed that the adopted amendments are aimed at fixing the difficulties related to the concept of digital rights. He also underlined:

“After the adoption of the law, citizens and legal entities will receive additional guarantees, allowing them to participate more actively in the development of the economy of the future.”

As Cointelegraph reported on Dec. 1, Pavel Krasheninnikov, the head of the council and chairman of the State Duma committee on state building and also another coauthor of the bill, said that the bill had been pushed back to the first reading stage as it needed to be dramatically changed.

Last month, Igor Yusufov, Russia’s former energy minister, had proposed an oil-backed  cryptocurrency, underling that construction of the project’s roadmap is reportedly almost at the final stage, as Cointelegraph wrote on Feb. 23.