The last interesting news from Ukraine that I remember is the one about local politicians who allegedly own as much as 46 351 BTC which is really impressive if true - >
652 Ukrainian officials declare holding a total of 46,351 BTCIt is quite logical that any government that will not ban cryptocurrencies regulates this area, because the money that can be collected from taxes should not be neglected. The minister obviously has big plans, although it does not seem realistic to me that Ukraine can become one of the top 10 countries in terms of cryptocurrency integration in the next 3 years.
I see the first problem in the current state of the state itself to defend the sovereignty of its territory, which stands as a great sign of instability above all, and the second problem is that the minister does not have a life term, and the question is what will happen if the ruling party changes in the next parliamentary elections.
It should also be noted that nowhere in the article Bitcoin or any other coin is explicitly mentioned.
It's indeed true that our politicians hodl a lot of BTC. The reason for that is that this way you don't have to pay taxes, and you don't have to explain where you got all that money (you simply say you're an early BTC investor, and that's it). As for top-10, it might be too ambitious, but cryptos seem already quite popular here, and the government is very interested in trying out new ways of boosting the economy, especially when it comes to adopting some new technologies. Did you know that Ukraine's
the first country in the world where digital passports in a governmental smartphone application are of the same legal force as the paper versions? As for Bitcoin not being mentioned in the article, it's just a very small press release, but Bitcoin is mentioned multiple times in the
full report from the meetings.
If they wanted to regulate cryptocurrency they would have done it by now.
There have been multiple attempts, but different stakeholders held different views on how to treat cryptocurrencies, so no draft law received enough support. I do believe that this time they might pull this off because both the parliament and the government (represented by the ministry) are involved. That being said, the regulated crypto space might indeed be worse for everyday users than a non-regulated one, even if the regulations are not restrictive.
Not true, there was one specific crypto law succesfully voted, but it was adopted in first edition and it doesn't have much power now. It's a work in progress. Ukraine also adopted some FATF regulation that also touches crypto. And theoretically people in Ukraine should be paying taxes on their mining or trading profits, and I'm sure some do, but Ukraine's private citizens in general don't hurry to pay taxes, and tax bodies are mostly interested in bigger fish, so it is true that a lot of people don't pay taxes on their crypto.
I know about the first edition, but it's not the law yet, and might never become one, which is why I phrased it that way in the post. As for FATF regulation, I've missed this one (it was only a year ago), but it only applies to limited cases, so it's not a full regulatory framework.
I'm sure that with the community's efforts, in regard to development of the area of virtual assets, Ukraine will not only be able to compete on the global crypto market, but also become the leading example for other countries.
I find this as a politician-type announcement that rises your hopes, but doesn't actually tell anything.
He doesn't tell what they want to do good, he doesn't tell what will be that leading thing they'll do, no time frame, nothing.
For now it would be safer to have no expectations at all from that announcement.
There are detailed time frames in the full report in Ukrainian. They intend to pass the law on virtual assets in September 2021, work on taxation and KYC policies in January 2022, make it possible to officially exchange cryptos for fiat and vice versa + establish the school program on virtual assets by July 2022, and open a master's program on DeFi in May 2024 (among many other things).