The Bank of Russia reiterated its mission to prevent the local financial system from utilizing crypto and now the head of the Financial Market Committee warned against it. Anatoly Aksakov at the Russian parliament expressed his worry against crypto and insisted the crypto owning population declare their digital assets, as per reports.
Russian crypto owners could lose everything
Data suggested that Russians have put 5 trillion rubles [$67 million] into crypto assets. Some of the owners could stand to lose everything as these assets were not backed by anything, noted Aksakov who played a key role in crypto regulation in the country.
The lack of education with greed to make money has landed many investors in a puddle of debt. And, the head of the Financial Market pointed at these people who could easily fall for pyramid schemes that were no new to the space. The Russian lawmaker once again highlighted the lack of stability in the digital currency market and added,
“Therefore, it is important to regulate the market, to protect, first of all, our citizens, to establish taxation and certain rights for cryptocurrency owners. However, they must be identified.”
Aksakov’s stance comes into light right after the head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Alexander Bastrykin, opined that crypto should not remain anonymous. Since Bastrykin reported directly to President Putin, his views of adding mandatory identification of all crypto users were taken up instantly by the authorities.
Like other countries, Russia and its lawmakers offered similar reasons to know its citizens’ crypto holding- preventing use in financing terrorism, drug trafficking, and the acquisition of weapons. Adding to the host of reasons were also tax implications. The citizens have to pay taxes on their crypto profits even under the current legislation. However, a crypto-specific law is yet to be adopted by the Duma.
Meanwhile, the state of mining could also become difficult in the country as Aksaov claimed that the mining industry “must be clearly defined.”
He stated,
“If we allow mining, then it must be [regulated officially], it must be determined that this is a business that is included in the register of the Federal Tax Service. And the taxation of mining should be made legally explicit. In addition, [miners] should pay energy tariffs at business rates. These are not tariffs for the general population, they are rates for businesses.”
While no specific decisions have been made, Russia will have to find a solution that caters to both, the central bank’s anti-crypto stance and big business representatives tokenization plans.