Russia’s Ministry of Finance has published a draft of the long-awaited law regulating token offerings and the trade of cryptocurrencies.
On January 25, Russia’s Ministry of Finance published the text of a draft law that would regulate the issuance, trade, and storage of cryptocurrencies, as well as placing certain legal requirements on parties that hold token offerings, or ICOs.
Originally requested by President Vladimir Putin in October 2017, the bill would allow holders of virtual currencies to trade them for other digital assets, rubles, foreign currencies, and “other property,” but only through compliant exchanges.
In order to be considered compliant, the operators of exchanges must act in accordance with “Articles 3 to 5 of Federal Law No. 39-FZ of April 22, 1996 ‘On the Securities Market,'” while “legal entities that are the organizers of trade” must abide by “the Federal Law of November 21, 2011 No. 325-FZ ‘On Organized Trading.'”
According to the bill, token offerings must make several pieces of information available to the public, including “the full name of the issuer of the tokens,” “the location of the permanently operating executive body of the issuer,” and the address of the issuer’s website. The same pieces of information relating to any central authority who would be validating blocks or issuing tokens on the blockchain in question would also need to be disclosed.
Additionally, those conducting token offerings would have to be transparent about the price per token and how that figure is determined; the procedure through which those tokens are to be issued; and the manner in which those tokens can be stored. All required information relating to token offerings would have to be released no fewer than three days before the event is to be held.
An accompanying document on the Ministry of Finance’s website explains that the process set forth for holding a token offering is analogous to that of “the initial placement of securities.”
Source/More: Russian Finance Ministry Publishes Cryptocurrency Draft Law, Ires Central Bank – ETHNews.com
