New Year – New Regulatory and Restrictive Efforts across the Globe

There has been a lot of news concerning crypto regulations lately. Thus, U.S. president Joe Biden and his administration are reportedly preparing to release the official strategy for digital assets by the beginning of February. According to a Bloomberg report, the accompanying executive order will be presented to Biden in the coming weeks.

The draft will address economic, regulatory, and U.S. national security challenges posed by cryptocurrencies. It will also list the U.S. federal agencies involved in assessing the risks and opportunities that digital assets pose.

According to the report, the Biden administration is also expected to weigh in on the possibility of the U.S. issuing a government-backed digital coin, known as a central bank digital currency or CBDC. Also, last week on Thursday, the Fed released a preliminary paper on a digitized currency and opened a public comment period through May 20.

In terms of the Russian government’s stance towards crypto, there has been an unabating tide of controversial statements apparently showing the “deal” is far from even being properly discussed – let alone implemented! After the publication of the infamous CBR report (can be found on CBR’s Website), which considered the possibility of banning cryptocurrencies, critical remarks began to overwhelm the expert community. Even State Duma deputies and representatives of law enforcement agencies joined in.

At the same time, rumors abound that such a decision was made personally by the President and this is exclusively his personal initiative, and the Central Bank was just elected to implement it. The security forces do not pursue a cryptocurrency ban at all, because they can already monitor the transactions of citizens.

According to Russian lawmakers, new oppressive measures will not help solve problems they are aimed at. What is needed is to introduce the crypto-currency industry into a legal framework for the State to be able to impose relevant taxes on it. However, the law had already been adopted in the first reading in the State Duma, but then its adoption was paused, since the Central Bank changed its position on the issue.

Meanwhile, the largest crypto exchange Binance announced its readiness for cooperation with the Russian Central Bank, which is ready to “regulate” the cryptocurrency industry. “We are always ready for negotiations or discussions to support the interests of law-abiding cryptocurrency users in Russia. The crypto-exchange takes its own obligations to comply with legal requirements quite responsibly, and also tries to establish cooperation with enforcement agencies. This is done in order to form a policy that will protect users, encourage innovation, and also promote our industry further,” said a representative of the cryptocurrency exchange” – Binance said in its press-release.