Topic: Kremlin vs bitcoiners. (Read 898 times)

How can this happen while currently the majority of Russian crypto users can say the largest including: journalists, artists, musicians, intellectual officials and also including the management of the Russian Central Bank, and many others, it is very strange and wrong if the Russian government treats the current bill.

I am not 100% sure about this sentence, last week I read in one media about this, many enthusiastic pros and cons in this matter, also including lawyers who are indifferent to what is being applied at this time.

I think the bill in Russia should not be treated like that, I think this will not work, as far as I know Russia is one of the biggest crypto users right now, My mind says that the bill is just a scare, by clinical idiots and patriots who don't know crypto, Russia should be the strongest crypto country in the world, don't lose to the United States.

Why invent something?
https://www.bestchange.ru/bitcoin-to-ruble-cash.html
A huge market for the sale of cryptocurrencies has formed in Russia, you can exchange your cryptocurrency for cash in rubles or dollars.
Many of these exchangers are cared for under the protection of the police and similar government agencies. I do not think that such a market will be closed.

This ban on the use of cryptocurrency as a means of payment can be easily circumvented. There are payment bank cards that allow pre-existing bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies to be converted at the exchange rate into rubles and paid in rubles. The law that has come into force will not be violated.

How will officials spend cryptocurrencies abroad? In many countries, there is very strict cryptocurrency legislation, which will require at least to go through the KYC procedure, and as a maximum to indicate the source of the funds. I think they will have to use the services of the shadow market to hide the presence of cryptocurrencies.

The new law did not ban the sale and exchange of cryptocurrencies, so I closely follow the crypto legislation.But only next year will we be able to look at the practical application of this law.

Which would make sense. Let FSB thieves spend Wex money and anyone they turn a blind eye to, and confiscate bitcoins of anyone else who's found not compliant with the new law.

Which is Russia to a tee. It is run for the benefit of the small number of people at the top.

If Russia ever do actually legislate anything this outcome is the most logical one.

Seems heavy-handed, but essentially it's not entirely dissimilar to what an average BTC buyer faces elsewhere, i.e. their bank can decline a bank transfer to a cryptocurrency exchange. Russia only codified this it into law.

It happens if you just read the headlines and not read the entire content, the draft bill is not about taking actions against illegal activities but rather making the entire cryptocurrency market illegal.

As some suggested it is not an easy task to make it illegal altogether, the better solution is always to monitor all the activities through a regulated exchange rather than forcing it underground. As long as there are other countries that does not have any ban you are able to withdraw the money and convert it to fiat and the government will not have any track record about that.

This is old news, it has already been disproved, so this is not true. Even in a country like Russia, there will be no such punishment for using cryptocurrency

You didn't read the news I guess. This does not make already illegal activities illegal in Russia but the drafted bill contains making the user of crypto illegal overall. From the issuance of cryptocurrencyes, circulation of it, as well as using cryptocurrencies as means of payment will be illegal based on the drafted bill of Russia with punishments going to 7 years in prison. I mean can you believe that? You going to jail just because you have crypto assets in that country? I don't think that this kind of bill should be made into a law because first of all it isn't even gonna be equal to all parties I know the Russian government is strict when it comes to AML but simply banning cryptocurrencies isn't really the solution here as a big industry will be affected.

looks like you feel sad about it but we must be happy with it because they will only punish those illegal activities and not those who are known to operate in a legit way  .

this will not affect the poor bitcoiners  but this do also make them more secure because these poor guys will now have a lesser chance to get scammed  .

I do not live in Russia so I do not know much about the politics and whatnot there but I think that the people there do not have that much power whenever they want to oppose the laws that are going to be passed on, Putin is a strong man and has an imposing personality and I think people know it. In my opinion, the laws concerning the illegal activities that can be done through bitcoin should be monitored because I do believe that more people will suffer in the long run if this kind of illegal activities are set aside in the ditch and letting it proliferate will make it worse that a simple legislations that helps in busting these illegal crypto activities will never make a dent, in short I agree with their policy to destroy these activities before they get bigger.

I've had a few lessons about the Russian mentality also from some friends (but all from ex-Soviet member countries so maybe they reference outdated mentalities haha) but I always feel that a lot of this is not exclusive to dear old Russia.

But you're right. You got the Dumas all hot and heavy on blockchain regulations, you've got special economic zones from two years ago happy to use nuclear power to operate mining farms, and then you've got banks like you show now buying up these machines. I think like in Asia, the government wants to take credit for everything, so you are really free to do anything but if you show a bit of gumption without approval, you get a slap on the wrist.

The majority poor you're worried about do not have Bitcoin, and are the least likely to be affected by any such potential new law coming into effect. Also...


... this is just one in a lengthening string of yes/no hot/cold news coming out from there. I bet you there's just a lot of deliberate misinformation coming out from both sides of the camp. They've definitely got bigger fish to fry than Bitcoiners they'd be happier keeping a steady eye on by allowing the current situation to proceed.

Yeah just like people laughed when BTC-e was first in trouble...Nothing can stop us...Russsssssia!!!!


Nothing, we're just talking about possibilities.
If they want to stop it or if they are just passing laws out of boredom to make them look like they are doing something.
There are laws against driving on the sidewalk in Russia but enforcing them is a hobby, just as there are a lot of other laws that nobody cares.

The problem starts when they really want for some reason to enforce this, like some infighting in the FSB for example, when the last clean up of the FSB happened billions of $ were involved as there was simply so much they could tolerate, even if the higher-ups were involved money was flowing out of the country way to fast, so they squashed everything.
If for one moment they will have the feeling money that they can grab are flowing out of the country through cryptos they will enforce it.

If not, nothing, as I said before, it will be a law that will simply collect dust.

i asked my russian friends about this yesterday. they both laughed.

let's cross this bridge when we come to it......


i'm saying both. a ban cannot be enforced and would be widely violated. the government has suggested as much. there are also no signs that they'll actually pass this proposal. every russian crypto bill to date has been squashed. what makes you think this time is different?

Conservative estimates put the size of the Russian shadow economy at 20% of GDP. Other estimates put its size closer to 45% of GDP. Russians are very used to hiding their assets from the authorities. Bribery is also extremely common. We can also see from the explosion in cross-border Tether usage between China and Moscow that cryptocurrencies make restrictions on capital flow ineffectual. I wonder what the bill's backers think a ban would accomplish -- another widely ignored Russian law and new avenue for corruption?

In the summer, there will probably be another Russian bill that proposes fully legalizing cryptocurrencies. Wake me up when Vladimir Putin actually signs one of them.

Chances are that nothing will come of this. Russia -- and Putin specifically -- have much bigger problems to worry about. He has even delayed his longstanding plans to rewrite the constitution to give himself another two terms in office.

You went from this:


to this


Two different scenarios, what can they do it if they really want, and if they will even do it in the first place.
If you would have bothered to actually read what I'm posting you couldn't have missed this:


But I'm used to it, if you don't stick your tongue deep down satoshi's......code and treat bitcoin as the supreme invincible undefeatable unbannable perfectionist entity you're spreading FUD.

lol, that sounds like a great reason to fearmonger about russia banning bitcoin.


cool, lemme know when russia bans bitcoin. they've been threatening to do it for 6+ years. i'm sure their intention was to quietly watch adoption go exponential for many years, and then try to ban it.


you glossed over this:


the implication is while they can restrict bitcoin exchanges in russia, they cannot stop russians from buying and owning bitcoins, nor will they try.

the chinese are an excellent example of a population that doesn't give a fuck about their totalitarian government's restrictions on bitcoin, or any sort of capital restrictions at all for that matter. when exchanges got banned, the OTC market exploded and chinese traders just moved to hong kong and singapore based exchanges.

the russians i know couldn't give one fuck what their government says about bitcoin either. this isn't 1970s soviet union anymore. it's the same situation as china. the PBOC threatened to ban bitcoin in china dozens of times over many years (just like the bank of russia) but never actually did. they can't and they know they would look completely powerless if they tried. that's the last thing authoritarians want.

i don't see any indication that russia is closer to banning bitcoin than it was in 2014. if anything, the opposite. but you can keep fearmongering if you'd like......

Hihihi, so you think a ban on crypto is impossible?
How many crypto owners are in North Korea? 

You haven't lived in a dictatorship, you don't know that feeling when you go to bed and you ask yourself if you did something that might get you arrested that night. It's normal to act brave while you're safe at home in another country, it's normal to be brave, but when people you know that had no intent to commit suicide jump out the windows, are suddenly sick and die in hospital, die in car crashes and nobody is allowed to see their bodies, you won't be that brave, nobody will. And if there are a few they will not live that much to tell their stories.

Trust me, I've lived in a communist dictatorship, you can ban EVERYTHING! You can ban even breathing for certain individuals, and it's pretty easy, you sentence them to the execution squad. Do you have a clue how many of my countrymen have died in labor camps and re-education centers? Covid19 is a carebear compared to that.
If Putin wants to ban it, he will ban it and after a few headlines and scandals nobody will care, and you won't hear a word about cryptos from Russia.



Yeah, bitcoin blogs at their best, twisting words, this is the actual text

So they can't prevent a Russian citizen that already has bitcoin to send bitcoins.....That's all!
Not a word about being unable to stop Russians from buying bitcoins or purchasing stuff with it.

watch this snippet from an interview with putin: https://twitter.com/APompliano/status/1255160696461037574

putin understands very well that russia can't control bitcoin. the central bank also recently acknowledged that a ban is actually impossible: https://beincrypto.com/russian-central-bank-admits-it-cant-ban-bitcoin/

a ban on bitcoin would be like a ban on gold---unenforceable, and would make the government look very impotent. these conflicting bills that keep being proposed are IMO more about political posturing and power brokering than an actual ban.

I can understand the jail terms and fine being implemented for every illegal actions made by individuals and businesses since it will be part of their amended criminal code but what I don't understand is why ban ICOs in general? News in Russia is certainly unclear since it is always back and forth of the Russian government in one day supporting crypto and in another they are opposing the crypto industry hopefully this news isn't true since if the ICO market lost Russia then it is another top market country not being able to take part of the demand.

Is there something new here? This is forth coming as we have seen Russian's stance keeps changing since 2017 so I'm not surprise by this.

@sheenshane - I do hope that you have been following's the government stance since 2017 because all they did was totally contradicting themselves. If you haven't follow them, then I suggest you do a research and you will find out everything. And remember the so called mining farms in Russia? We really don't know what happen then, it was reported, if I'm not mistaken in 2018 and then boom? Never heard of it again. Putin will never allow something that they can't control specially giving too much freedom, like bitcoin.

This.
This only shows how serious their country when it comes to implementing a law though it may sound unjustifiable, but we aren't the citizens of Russia. But for them or the Russian citizen, they get used to this kind of punishment. Russia is an authoritarian country and if they said something then it must be done it will be really hard for their citizens to get involved in Bitcoins if their government will give this sanctions to law violators.

However, it's still early for us to be alarmed things might still change especially when Putin gets to know the advantages of bitcoin and that some countries have started to embrace it. This is the might reason, " Blow To Bitcoin As Russia Moves To Effectively Ban Crypto ".

Total illegality could work rather nicely for them. Many people will ignore it. They will all be very straightforward and juicy targets. A world where Bitcoin thrives outside and continues to enter Russia ready to be grabbed wherever it can be found would be a lucrative one.

Where that might blow up in their faces is if it starts to be used widely in conventional finance. If Russia's a total no go in that scenario it might start to hurt their bottom line. You can be a thieving gangster but also want to do legit ish business with the rest of the world too.

They are already granted by law since KGB times the means of self-funding, they can sell or lease, import, and export anything as long as it is considered a source of funding activities as long as this doesn't go against anything else in their statute. I doubt that those bitcoins are still in the organization's possession and haven't yet either sold to fund it or sold to....who it needed to be sold.


It's not that simple, we're talking about basically a dictatorship here
It is normal for any dictator and his elite to seek any kind of revenue from everything, from faking goods, selling counterfeit currency, involving in smuggling, everything till...anyone dealing with this is seen as gathering too much power and the thing is considered to be dangerous to the foundation of the party and terminated.
If Putin decides this thing could give too much power to somebody and be outside its total control it's game over!

It's always more convenient to have a veneer of legitimacy when trying get rid of or undermine someone who has become a thorn in a side, and blatant law-breakers make for the easiest targets.

The FSB can do whatever the hell they like. Law does or doesn't apply to whomever their masters choose. Russia is basically a very large mechanism designed to transfer money into a small number of pockets at the top.

Most likely a struggle between rival factions, even in autocracies such as Russia or China more than a single person or entity gets to have a say how things are ran.


The FSB is said to have a at least a five-figure amount of bitcoins stolen from Wex, it'd be easier to launder or make use of them if their country's laws weren't overly draconian.

inevitable, why?

there has been longstanding disagreement between russia's central bank and the ministry of finance about how to address cryptocurrency. the former wants to ban it, the latter wants to legalize and regulate.

meanwhile the duma has been at a standstill on the matter for many years, state-owned utilities are building mining farms, and local governors are trying to attract bitcoin miners to their provinces.
https://www.coindesk.com/a-russian-nuclear-plant-is-renting-space-to-energy-hungry-bitcoin-miners
https://news.bitcoin.com/russian-governor-cryptocurrency-miners-mining-farms-leningrad/

i have a feeling too many russian political elites are already invested in bitcoin or bitcoin infrastructure to allow this sort of bill to pass. considering the shaky crude oil market and their dependence on it, russia also needs to consider the tax revenues and diversification that regulated crypto mining and trading could bring.

Yeah.

Right.

I really hope the rest of Russia isn't run along these lines because their whole crypto apocalypse has been a fucking joke from second one. Have they actually passed any laws at all yet? They've had several years to do it.

One day Putin is being put on the blockchain. The next day you're going to get a pint of radioactive tea courtesy of the FSB if have a scroll through Coindesk.

If this is some sort of 4D chess against crypto they've blown it miserably. Russia is a nothing when it could've been something. And no one else cares.

You posted it in legal, so we should discuss it from the legal point of view? Then, there is not much to talk about it.

If Putin approves, it will be done, and once he does its a matter of how much do they really want to curb usage in the country.
There are hundreds of laws in Russia but enforcing them it's another thing, if they will simply use it as a means to target individuals most of the users can still fly below the radar and will not get in trouble. If it's an all-out crackdown on it, then it's simply game over.  he fine might not scare a few of the big users, but if it comes to prison time, this is not Norway where prison cells are more comfortable than 99% of the homes in Eastern Europe.

I tried following the Russian topics but google translate is really annoying so it would be nice if a few of the Russian speakers would come here and explain more about that proposal.

It's still draft bills, the time it takes to become law, pigs will fly. I mean it can take a long time (up to years) and a lot of things can happen between. Especially since, as the article quotes, the authorities disagree with each other.

For companies I don't think it's a big deal, they will need to be listed on the central bank’s register to continue business and if they can't be listed it's just a matter to change the business location to another country. Companies won't hesitate to do it.

For individuals, it will mean better to not use anything related to banks/payment processors/VISA,MC to buy/sell/exchange tokens.

Yes, I believe the punishment is severe, but Russia is usually severe with everything

I believe that this violates the rights of traders in their country, will they really do this?

It is, but they're also an authoritarian country which can get away with most of what they want. The penalties are a reflection of how resolute they are in their stance, and they obviously don't want crypto being handled at all:


This article was from two months ago. Putin has flip-flopped for the longest time, but it looks like it's inevitable this time.

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