Russian crypto-currency exchange could be set up within Moscow Exchange, lawmaker says

MOSCOW. July 7 (Interfax) - A Russian crypto-currency exchange could be set up under the auspices of the Moscow Exchange , Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma's Financial Markets Committee, told a press conference.

"Of course, there should be a crypto-exchange, set up according to the Central Bank's stringent requirements. This could be a division of the Moscow Exchange, a division that would work within a respected organization, with great traditions, accustomed to actively interacting with the Central Bank - it would cope best of all with the task of carrying out operations with cryptocurrency," Aksakov said.

The Russian Finance Ministry sent the government a draft Federal Law on Digital Currency at the end of February, which lays out in legislation the regulatory norms for the cryptocurrency market in Russia earlier approved by the government. According to the Finance Ministry concept, the banking system should be involved in authorizing cryptocurrency infrastructure in Russia. The ministry proposes formalizing the operations of Russian crypto-exchanges and p2p platforms and grounding foreign cryptocurrency exchanges in Russia, but making withdrawal of funds from all cryptocurrency platforms possible only through Russian banks with a universal license that also receive the relevant license and use the Transparent Blockchain digital service from the Federal Financial Monitoring Service.

A number of foreign crypto-exchanges consistently imposed restrictions on Russian users at the beginning of March in connection with which grounding them became no longer relevant, Aksakov said earlier. Draft laws regulating the creation of crypto-exchanges in Russia, however, were not introduced by the government in the State Duma's spring session.

"Digital currency will be the center of attention, and I expect [draft legislation] to come in during the fall session," Aksakov said at the press conference on Thursday.