The government has approved a plan to regulate cryptocurrencies

The government has approved a concept for regulating cryptocurrencies in Russia. The document was published on the department's website.

The nine-page draft does not have any authors listed. It is known that employees of several departments worked on the concept, including the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank, Rosfinmonitoring, the FSB and others. Now the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank must prepare a joint bill by February 18.

The government's concept proposes that Russian banks monitor and control all cryptocurrency transactions. They will also store data about clients and transactions, including passport data, photographs of clients, telephone numbers, address and bank account number for a minimum of five years.

Russian crypto exchanges, according to the concept, will be required to open legal entities, and foreign ones will be required to open representative offices in Russia and provide the authorities with all data on transactions of Russian clients. For violation of the rules of cryptocurrency circulation, administrative and criminal penalties are expected - the government decided to make appropriate changes to the Code of Administrative Offenses and the Criminal Code.

The plan for regulating cryptocurrencies was supported by all departments except the Central Bank. The regulator insisted on a complete ban on cryptocurrencies in Russia. Bloomberg, citing sources , claimed that the FSB convinced the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, to support a complete ban on transactions with cryptocurrencies due to opposition donations.