Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, reportedly approved a proposal from the Russian government to tax and regulate cryptocurrency mining, rejecting the central bank’s intention to outlaw it completely.
According to Russian news organization Tass, in reaction to the current proposal, Sergey Katyrin, chairman of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, wrote to Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, requesting that crypto mining be upgraded to the level of a company and thereby excluded from the “grey zone.”
The letter of Katyrin said, “it seems necessary to make significant revisions to current legislation and also to hammer out a range of new regulatory acts that will determine in particular the legal status of the mining as a kind of business activity, making it possible to exclude this activity from the ‘grey zone,’ ensuring relevant tax and other compulsory payments.”
Additionally, Katyrin urged that the legitimacy of crypto created by miners, its distribution, and its position as a payment method be clarified by recommending the following: “the legal status of cryptocurrency produced by miners and its further circulation and… the legal status of cryptocurrency as a payment instrument.”
The Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry stated emphatically that the ruble’s status as Russia’s official currency should never be challenged.
Still, he emphasized that studying the events of countries where crypto is treated as a digital image of value instead of a payment instrument, and where the trading of cryptocurrencies for goods is treated as a transaction, is instructive.
Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president, was the most recent politician to express worry, claiming that Russia’s crypto ban will have the reverse impact to what is the originally intended outcome.