#regulation

The New Hampshire House of Representatives voted down the bill HR522 which had implied that the state could collect taxes and fees in bitcoins.

The government of Belgium has tasked the country’s tax authorities to investigate possible fraud and money-laundering schemes involving bitcoin. According to local publication De Morgen, the authorities are especially interested in retail stores accepting cryptocurrency. “The tax department is considering the bitcoin. There will be a battle plan to combat fraud,” reads the publication. There […]

According to Reuters, the EU intends to continue monitoring virtual currencies rather than regulating them right away. The intent is said to be justified by little knowledge of virtual money’s regulatory risks deemed inherent, like being prone to money-laundering. The other reason is that cryptocurrency market in general is incomparably smaller than that of fiat […]

Lyudmila Bokova, deputy chairwoman at Russian Federation Council’s costitutional committee, states that propagation of cryptocurrencies in Russia shall be deemed inevitable. For that reason, she believes, the government should consider regulating cryptocurrency instead of bannning it. Last week, the head of Russian Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin stated that his agency insists on introducing criminal penalties […]

Recent development of affairs in Russia may signify that Russian officials have divided into two camps. While usually depicted as a monolith, Russian government en masse incorporates two opposing groups, usually dubbed securocrats and techlibs (an acronym for technology liberals). The former usually have something to do with various law enforcement or intelligence agencies, while […]

Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russian Investigative Committee, promises to make cryptocurrency operations criminally punishable. He stated that in his interview to Russian government publication Rossiyskaya Gazeta, speaking about his agency’s combat with corruption, terrorism, cryptocurrency, and Ponzi schemes. “It is necessary to fight against varuous soap bubbles on financial market, namely finanical tools not backed […]

Russian Ministry of Finance has finalized its own draft law concerning the ban of so-called ‘money surrogates’. It intends to submit it to the government’s reviewing. The ministry proceeded with development of the draft law as eary as August 2014. However, the document received numerous criticisms and was revised several times. The ministry justifies its […]

Members of Russian legislative assembly, the State Duma, may review a new draft edition of the Administrative Violations Code in the first reading as early as this February. The draft law implies de-facto legalization of operations with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The legislative initiative has been submitted to the State Duma in late 2015. Previously […]