Russian site owners rejoice on winning an important battle against the ban imposed by a district court following a request from the Prosecutor’s office in May last year. The ban was on 40 websites related to Bitcoin which offered information about cryptocurrencies and exchanges in Russia. This prohibited ‘spreading of information’ as well as buying and selling cryptos. This ban was lifted by Saint Petersburg City Court at 04:55:00 UTC yesterday.
The Oktyabrsky District Court had imposed a law which made it an offense to spread information about bitcoins and the use of cryptocurrencies was made illegal in the Russian Federation. The Russian telecommunications supervisory agency Roscomnadzor was supposed to blacklist the sites based on the notice from the Federation.
The Regional court noted that bitcoin was ‘not backed by real value’ and its use was anonymous. The cryptocurrency ‘does not have a subject which guarantees its conditional purchasing power’. They were worried that ‘the emission and the circulation of bitcoins are completely decentralized and there was no state regulation’.
The court also mentioned,
“The Russian ruble was the only official currency in the country, pointing out that emitting other currencies and money surrogates was prohibited.”
Russian Federation fears cryptocurrencies might enable the growth of a shadow economy. There is a case against this and is kept pending to be reviewed by other judges for which it will be returned to the Oktyabrsky District Court for a review. A new judicial panel is assigned to review this decision according to the Russian law.
On the other hand, Moscow is still working on a new crypto Legislation to regulate the sector. The ministry of finance proposed a law on ‘digital financial assets’ and crowdfunding, despite the disagreements with the Central Bank of Russia. Federal institutions have undergone continuous criticism for their slow progress.
Duma Anatoliy Aksakov, chairman of the financial market Committee said,
“The committee members were trying to speed up the legal process and were ready to introduce the drafted legislation in the lower house of Russia’s parliament.”
Experts from the crypto sector stated,
“That the proposed regulations leave many issues unresolved and need revision before their final adoption.”
The decision of striking down the ban on bitcoin-related websites and crypto exchanges might represent important changes in the Russian authority’s attitude towards the crypto world.