The new cryptocurrency draft law from the Ministry of Finance is much welcomed by bitcoin experts and the community as a step away from bitcoin ban but criticised for its imperfections.

The new decision to legalise cryptocurrency purchase and use outside Russia but to prohibit its issuance within the country has been voiced by the Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev. CoinFox asked Russian experts to comment on the new draft law.

According to Gleb Davidyuk, iTechCapital managing partner and BitFury investor,

“The Ministry of Finance is moving in the right direction. But one should look before he leaps. It’s too early to make conclusions while there is no bill yet.”

Marina Guryeva, Acting Director of Innovations Office, Higher School of Economics, was critical of the new limitations imposed by the proposed law:

“Tokens are an integral part of any blockchain system. If the wording is generalised, then all the tokens of any system are at risk of being banned. If the Ministry of Finance somehow specifies the characteristics of the tokens used only as a cash equivalent, then not only bitcoins will fall under the ban, but also other coins, for example, steem coins used to pay to the creators of Steem social network (steemit.com). The more services like Steem we have the harder it is for regulators to control issuance in Russia. Moreover, Russia will lose from the expulsion of all teams that are willing and able to develop services such as Steem (Steem’s capitalisation has grown from $13 million up to $350+ million in a few weeks).”

Konstantin Koltsov, Communications Director at QIWI, leading Russian e-payment provider, is more optimistic:

“It may facilitate the development of blockchain projects in terms of technology. This initiative will allay the fears of blockchain products developers that they can be held accountable for the use of bitcoins even for solely technological purposes.”

Bitcoin community worldwide seems more maximalist both in appraise and in criticism of the proposed law. Bitcoiner Bryce Weiner wrote on his Twitter feed:

Russia has become the first nation to formally allow entry into #Bitcoin.



Biggest news of 2016. — Bryce Weiner (@BryceWeiner) 18 июля 2016 г.

Reddit author mwblredditor reacted:

“If this is true, awesome. Love Putin.”

Others sound more sceptic. Said user mistaik:

“Considering that just recently they wanted to give bitcoiners "up to 7 years" in teh gulag, would be a weird reversal.“

Some users questioned the validity of the new idea and the ability of Russian government to control the mining of cryptocurrencies:

“Still so clueless and confused, still combining uncombinable and separating inseparable. Almost as if they read about BTC in 2010, and never checked whether anything changed since then.” (theartlay) “The Russian government has such a surplus of time and resources, they'll definitely be able to stop its use! Lol, nah this is simply a power move, look strong and "allow" what you cannot stop. (JacobElProdigy)”.

Alexey Tereshchenko