Anatoly Aksakov, president of the Duma's state committee for financial market analysis, revealed Thursday that the draft bill that would regulate cryptocurrencies in the territory will be presented on December 28th of this year.

According to the Russian press, the proposal will provide for the regulation of Initial Currency Offers (ICOs) under a scheme similar to crowdfunding collective financing, limiting the amount of investment that users can make. It is also mentioned that the figure of the cryptocurrencies will be treated as a property. This bill will be presented as a law that treats all cryptoactives equally without mentioning specific names of them.

Aksakov stressed that this may not be the final version of the legislation, as it still needs to be revised for approval. The current regulatory emphasis is on financing through Initial Currency Offers, as in this case it is when most frauds occur among vulnerable users who expect to make large profits and are easy prey for fraudsters. If passed, the law regulating the use of cryptocurrencies could be implemented in March 2018.

"This is not the latest version, the latest version will be discussed in the next few days. The ICO is considered a crowdfunding element, and the approach is that investors should limit the amount they invest.

Until now, there will be a meeting with a narrow circle, there will be a final evaluation before the presentation of the bill, no names, no bitcoins, no ethers, all the cryptocurrencies will be a property."

The deputy also stressed that this work will involve the Central Bank of Russia and the Ministry of Finance. In his view, such a law is necessary to protect investors in the best possible way against the problems that fraudulent ICOs may represent. He also said that cryptocurrencies should not be subject to VAT as it is considered a financial instrument and "its circulation should not be aggravated by value added".

Statements about the future of cryptocurrencies in the Siberian country have been given from all parts of the government and sometimes do not correspond with each other. In November, the Russian Minister of Communications and Media Nikolai Nikiforov said during a press conference that the Russian regulatory framework will "never" have laws that make bitcoin a legal tender because it is a foreign cryptographic coin. Although he later clarified that Russia is willing to include other "digital tokens" within its financial system, as long as they are subscribed to taxes other than VAT.

aFor its part, at the end of last month, the Russian Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Association (ARCB) announced that it would collaborate, together with representatives from 30 other countries, in developing a standard methodology to assess the reliability of the projects proposed through the ICOs in order to protect investors from possible scams.

The Government of the Russian Federation currently governs cryptoactives under the first guidelines on the use of cryptocurrencies and ICO for the Russian financial sector, which were approved in October by President Putin.