Central Bank of Russia plans to agree with govt on the parameters of ELR for cryptocurrency in near future - Nabiullina

MOSCOW. May 16 (Interfax) - The Central Bank of Russia plans to agree with the government in the near future on the experimental legal regime (ELR), which will allow a new category of especially qualified investors to conduct transactions with cryptocurrencies, Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said during a speech at the Russian National Association of Securities Market Participants (NAUFOR) conference.

The Central Bank reported in March that it had submitted a proposal to the government to allow cryptocurrency transactions within the ELR for the category of "specially qualified" investors. This is a new status that citizens are expected to be able to obtain if their investments in securities and deposits exceed 100 million rubles or if their income for the past year was more than 50 million rubles.

"Investments directly in cryptocurrencies will require changes in regulation and will require a separate infrastructure. In our opinion, this should be carried out as part of an experimental legal regime and accessible only to particularly qualified investors. We are currently discussing who these particularly qualified investors could be, and what the criteria are. Because these should be investors for whom the risks of high volatility, and indeed investments directly in cryptocurrencies are risks of high volatility, risks of blocking, that these risks, if they are realized, will not be critical for the investor," Nabiullina said.

"We expect that we will be able to agree on this with the government in the near future and work it out as part of the experimental legal regime," she said.