Russia’s New Bill to Distinguish E-Pay Wallets from Crypto-Wallets

While the rest of the countries including the United States is still considering giving the cryptocurrency industry a shot,

While the rest of the countries including the United States is still considering giving the cryptocurrency industry a shot, Russia is taking things to an entirely new level. With the recent developments being made by Russia in the crypto-sector, it seems that Russia has already landed on Mars while others are still trying to build rockets.

With the start of the year 2021, things will change dramatically for the cryptocurrency-blockchain industry in Russia. The main factor behind this change is the ‘On Digital Financial Assets – DFA’ law that was passed and signed by the Russian President ‘Vladimir Putin’ back in the mid of this year.

On one hand, the law recognizes the cryptocurrency industry as an independent legal digital-asset. On the other, the law imposes strict regulations over the cryptocurrency industry to keep it under control of the Russian Government.

Just recently, it was announced that for all Government Officials, it would be mandatory to reveal their personal/official crypto-assets. The Russian Government order that the assets must be revealed by the beginning of 2021. The announcement was followed by the penalties that the individuals or companies would incur for not adhering to the rule.

And now, the Russian parliament is at it again to pass another bill that is related to the cryptocurrency industry. The bill has been presented in the Russian parliament where it will be trialed and voted for. As per the law, it has been proposed with the aim to clarify the difference between crypto wallets and e-pay wallets.

In addition to the above, the bill also suggests that anonymous payments should be allowed in digital transactions. However, there is one particular condition, which is that anonymous transactions must be processed in fiat currencies.

The bill was proposed by several MPs of the Russian Parliament. One of the prominent MP from the Russian parliament was Duma’s chairman for the financial markets committee ‘Anatoly Aksakov’. As per Aksakov, the new bill has been proposed with the aim to fix a problematic bill that was passed back in August of 2020.

The new bill presented by the MPs has been titled ‘On the National Payment System’. Among all other concerns mentioned in the bill, the main reason for presenting the bill is to segregate the e-pay sector from the crypto-sector.

If the votes count in favor of the bill, then the e-pay sector will acquire legal status in Russia as well as freedom from the crypto-regulations that the sector currently has to adhere to. In addition to both the crypto-sector and e-pay-sector being given individual status, there will be many changes that will come into play.

If the new bill gets passed then YooMoney will have to block all its user accounts that are currently linked to cryptocurrency exchanges.