Russia Enacts a Comprehensive Legal Framework for Digital Currencies
Russia enacted Federal Law No. 282-FZ, establishing a broad legal framework for digital-currency exchange, custody and market intermediaries under Bank of Russia supervision. Because Bitcoin is one of the decentralized digital currencies covered by the regime, the law moved Russia toward regulated domestic infrastructure for holding and exchanging assets such as Bitcoin.
On August 4, Russia enacted Federal Law No. 282-FZ, “On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights,” creating a new statutory framework for organizations engaged in the exchange, custody and administration of digital currencies. The Bank of Russia lists the law among its governing financial-market statutes and subsequently began publishing requirements for the new categories of regulated institutions created by the legislation.
The framework created regulated entities for organizing digital-currency exchange and for providing digital custody. Organizations conducting exchange activity would have to enter Bank of Russia registries and meet capital, governance and other regulatory requirements. Digital depositories were given authority to account for and transfer digital currencies and digital rights and to provide access to the addresses on which those assets are recorded.
The law was broader than Bitcoin and should not be described as Bitcoin-specific legislation. Its Bitcoin significance came from the fact that Bitcoin falls within the decentralized digital-currency activity being brought into the regulated financial system. Russia had spent years moving between restrictions on domestic cryptocurrency payments, regulation of mining and experiments involving cross-border digital-asset settlement. The August legislation created a more formal legal architecture around the intermediaries through which Russians could exchange or custody assets such as Bitcoin.
Important parts of the regime were scheduled to take effect beginning September 1, with transitional periods for existing operators and additional regulatory implementation continuing afterward.
Historically, the law was significant less because Russia suddenly embraced Bitcoin as money than because one of the world's largest economies created durable regulated infrastructure around a market it had previously treated much more cautiously. Bitcoin remained outside the ruble monetary system, but it was increasingly being treated as an asset whose exchange and custody could exist inside supervised financial institutions rather than solely outside them.