The Ministry of Finance of Russia and the Central Bank would have planned to launch an exchange of crypto for qualified investors under an experimental legal regime.
The platform will aim for “super-qualified investors,” said finance minister Anton Soluanov, at a ministry meeting, according to to April 23 reports from Russian Media Group RBC and the Russian news agency Interfax.
“With the Central Bank, we will launch an exchange of crypto for super-qualified investors. Cryptographic assets will be legalized, and cryptographic operations will be put in the shadow,” he said in a statement translated from Russian.
“Naturally, this will not happen at the national level, but within the framework of operations authorized by the experimental legal regime.”
The Russian central bank announced a proposal on March 12 to allow a limited number of Russian investors with a certain number of assets to buy and sell cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) as part of an experimental regime of three years.
Under the proposal, the Bank has created a new category of investors, super-qualified investors, defined by wealth and income thresholds of more than 100 million rubles ($ 1.2 million) or an annual income of at least 50 million rubles ($ 602,000).
Definition of super-qualified investors not fixed in stone
Deputy director of the Financial Policy Department of the Ministry of Finance, Osman Kabaloev, said The criteria of a super-qualified investor are not yet final because they were floated in the early stages of discussions last year, according to RBC.
“Perhaps it will be in this format, or these indicators will in a way be adjusted in one direction or another – it is possible, I think there will be a wide range of discussions,” Kabaloev said in a statement translated from Russian.
Russia has implemented the prohibition to use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin for payments under its first law on cryptography, which entered into force in January 2021.
However, the country has since tried to make other cryptographic breakthroughs. On April 16, Kabaloev said that the Kremlin should create its own stablecoin after a recent freeze on portfolios linked to the Russian Exchange Guarantex exchange by the American authorities and the stablecoin Tether transmitter.
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Meanwhile, Evgeny Masharov, a member of the Russian Civic Chamber, proposed on March 20 to create a Cryptography Fund for the Russian government which would include assets confiscated from criminal procedures.
At the same time, other civil servants progressed with new legislation on the recognition of the crypto as goods for legislation ends on criminal procedure.
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