The police took away “everything except the refrigerator” in Mikhail Chobanyan’s house, according to his Facebook remark. He believes that such an attitude from the authorities may deprive Ukraine of future.

The Cyber Crime Department of the Interior Ministry of Ukraine dispatched their agents to search the apartment of Mikhail Chobanyan, the founder and leader of Bitcoin Foundation Ukraine, according to his Facebook post. Smartphones and SIM cards, a tablet, a Wi Fi router were taken away, as well as personal things of Mikhail’s family and brochures about bitcoin. The police tried not to allow lawyers in, says Chobanyan.

According to the search warrant, Chobanyan, being a co-owner of web resources kuna.com.ua and kuna.io, allowing exchange of bitcoins into Ukrainian Hryvnyas and viceversa, is suspected of emitting cryptocurrencies and infracting on the rules of using electronic currencies in Ukraine.

The leader of Bitcoin Foundation Ukraine disagrees with the decision of the court. As there are currently no laws regulating cryptocurrencies in Ukraine, Chobanyan believes their mining and exchange for Hryvnyas should be considered as legal.

The lawsuit started on 30 November 2014. Since that time, says Chobanyan, Bitcoin Foundation Ukraine has worked a lot with the Central Bank of Ukraine, other Ukrainian banks, lawyers and general public to standardize the use of bitcoin in Ukraine. It also strengthened its ties with global bitcoin community to use foreign experience.

“Did we do all this just to see our efforts challenged on 03.11.2015 by several half-literate investigators sanctioned by a judge who sincerely believes that if the word ‘cryptocurrency’ is absent from the law, it is illegal”?

Chobanyan stresses that Bitcoin Foundation Ukraine develops bitcoin technology, “the quickest growing and the most promising in the world”, for free while top 20 economies invest hundreds of millions of dollars into its development. For him, the future of Ukraine is at the stake.

Two representatives of the National Bank of Ukraine have participated in the Bitcoin Conference Kiev in September 2015. Natalia Lapko, Director of the Payment Systems Department at the NBU, confirmed that “Ukraine will not ban bitcoin” and promised to integrate it into Ukrainian financial system. Sergei Shatskii, director of the Retail Payments Department at the NBU, told that National Bank of Ukraine is interested in bitcoin as means to replace cash with cashless transactions.

Alexey Tereshchenko