Sunday, February 9, 2014

Russia Prepares Crackdown on Bitcoin

FT reports:

Russian authorities are preparing to crack down on Bitcoin and have warned that those who use “cryptocurrencies” are breaking the law, as regulatory scrutiny of the virtual payment system intensifies around the world.

The promise of new measures to curb the virtual currency was made after Russia leapfrogged China to become the second-fastest growing territory for Bitcoin software downloads, behind the US[...]

Law enforcement organs in Russia and the country’s central bank are working on joint steps to prevent “illegal acts in the sphere of money circulation in Russia and prevent the violation of property rights of citizens and legal persons associated with the use of ‘cryptocurrencies’,” the general prosecutor’s office said in a statement posted on its website over the weekend.

It added: “Anonymous payment systems and cryptocurrencies that have gained considerable circulation, including the most famous of them, Bitcoin, are money substitutes and cannot be used by individuals and legal persons.”

Under existing legislation, the introduction of monetary units other than the rouble or the issuance of money substitutes is prohibited in Russia. But the threat of regulatory action indicates that the authorities are now leaning towards banning the currency in a long-running debate over its use[...]

Regulators’ actions could sharply alter the development of Bitcoin, which is seen by some as a cheap alternative to the current system for transferring money and by others as a completely separate currency that could replace government-controlled fiat currencies.


1 comment:

  1. How would one say, "bring it!" in Russian?

    ReplyDelete