The Federation Council approved at a plenary session lawwhich legalizes cryptocurrency mining in Russia. The main provisions of the law concerning mining will come into force on November 1, 2024.
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Bill No. 237585-8 was initiated by a group of deputies led by the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets Anatoly Aksakov. The document was submitted to the State Duma in November 2022, and its revised version was submitted in April 2024.
The law establishes the procedure and conditions for conducting cryptocurrency mining activities. The right to engage in mining will be granted to Russian legal entities and individual entrepreneurs included in the relevant register of the Ministry of Digital Development of the Russian Federation. Individuals will be able to mine digital currency without being included in the register if they do not exceed the energy consumption limits set by the Russian government.
The requirements for the activities of individuals and legal entities mining digital currency, including mining pool participants, as well as for persons organizing its activities, will be established by the Russian government in agreement with the Bank of Russia. The Ministry of Digital Development will monitor compliance with these requirements.
Miners will be required to provide information about the mined digital currency and the address identifiers to the government-authorized body, which will forward it to Rosfinmonitoring and the Bank of Russia. Address identifiers must also be provided upon request from Rosfinmonitoring, the FSB, the Federal Tax Service, and the Federal Property Management Agency.
At the same time, Rosfinmonitoring will maintain a list of address identifiers that raise suspicions of possible use for money laundering or terrorist financing, as well as other criminal activities.
According to the law, trading of foreign digital financial assets (DFA) on Russian blockchain platforms is permitted, while the Central Bank will have the right to impose a ban on the placement of individual issues if it sees a threat to the financial stability of the Russian Federation. The document also simplifies the integration of Russian DFA with foreign systems.
The law prohibits advertising of digital currency and goods (works, services) to an unlimited number of persons for the purpose of organizing its circulation, as well as advertising of digital financial assets containing an indication of the possibility of their acquisition only by individual entrepreneurs and (or) legal entities specified in the decision to issue digital financial assets. This ban will come into effect immediately after the law comes into force.
In addition, the law establishes a list of individuals and enterprises that are prohibited from mining. These include individuals who are sole proprietors and who have an outstanding or unexpunged conviction for economic crimes and other crimes, as well as individuals included in the list of organizations and individuals involved in extremist activity or terrorism, and those in respect of whom a decision has been made to freeze (block) funds or other property. This list includes legal entities that have such individuals among their founders (participants), beneficiaries and managers who do not meet the requirements for business reputation.
Legal entities and individual entrepreneurs are also prohibited from combining mining with activities related to the transmission of electricity, operational dispatch control in the electric power industry, production or purchase and sale of electricity.
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