Financial organizations to bear main responsibility for facilitating cryptocurrency transactions by non-qualified investors - Central Bank of Russia
SOCHI. Oct 9 (Interfax) - Banks, brokers, exchanges and professional participants in the securities market will bear the main responsibility for conducting cryptocurrency transactions with clients with whom they are forbidden by law to do so, First Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Russia Vladimir Chistyukhin said.
"Having designated the legal boundaries of cryptocurrency investments, we need to create a functional mechanism for combating illegal cryptocurrency transactions," Chistyukhin told journalists at the sidelines of the Finopolis forum.
"At the same time, we are working on the basis that it is not citizens who will bear the main burden of responsibility, but Russian financial intermediaries - banks, brokers, exchanges and other professional participants of this market, who will be prohibited from fulfilling the corresponding requests by clients and conducting transactions if those clients do not hold the status of an individual who can invest in cryptocurrency," he said.
Chistyukhin said that those who already possess cryptocurrency would not be required to relinquish it.
"They have the right to own cryptocurrency as they owned it before; they have the right to sell this cryptocurrency on the territory of the Russian Federation, by which I mean using Russian infrastructure. If they wish to make some kind of other deals, foreign infrastructure can help them to do that, as it is done nowadays," Chistyukhin said.
The CBR said in March that it had proposed that the government allow cryptocurrency deals within an experimental legal regime for the "extra qualified investor" category. This is a new status which is intended to be granted to citizens with investments in securities and deposits above 100 million rubles and income exceeding 50 million rubles for the past year. These criteria are not final and are still being discussed by the Finance Ministry and the CBR. There are also ongoing discussions on allowing investments in cryptocurrencies by qualified investors who undergo special tests.
It has been reported that the CBR expects a new law covering all aspects of cryptocurrency investment to be introduced in 2026. After this, the regulator plans to give all participants a minimum of one year to prepare and for structures which currently deal in cryptocurrency to legalize their operations.
