A bill has been drafted and submitted to the consideration of the Ukrainian parliament last week. According to the Ain.ua news agency, this bill was initiated by a collective of deputies in collaboration with the Ukrainian Blockchain Association, miners, and trading platforms. The bill aims to address the treatment of cryptocurrencies under the law.
The submitted bill was a small document and likely to prove to be inadequate in scope. However, the document proposes legal working definitions of the main terms encountered within the cryptocurrency market. In addition, the bill proposed rules which would legalize cryptocurrency mining. The bill does not consider cryptocurrency as legal tender, but rather as a property which can be exchanged for goods and services. The first section of the bill is concerned with the legal definitions of cryptocurrency, exchanges, transactions, blockchains, cryptocurrency owners, as well as cryptocurrency miners. Notably, the bill failed to include a definition of initial coin offerings (ICOs).
According to the ITC.ua, the bill suggests that the central bank of the Ukraine, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), should be appointed as the official regulator of all cryptocurrency activity in the country. In addition, the proposal urged the NBU to create procedural operations for cryptocurrency trading.
The bill also included a section which proposed that the owners of cryptocurrency have the right to choose how they will use their cryptocurrency, be it in exchange for other cryptocurrencies, exchanging them for fiat currencies, or for exchanging them for goods or services. The bill suggested that cryptocurrencies would enjoy the same rights as private property and barter contracts.
According to the ITC.ua publication, the bill seeks to legalize all cryptocurrency activity within the Ukrainian borders.
Despite the bill submission, the NBU has yet to come to a decision regarding its policies on cryptocurrency regulation. Last week, the head of projects and programs at NBU's open market department, Emal Bakhtar, stated that the NBU is currently engaged in looking towards other European countries and learning from their cryptocurrency regulation policies. He expressed his hope that the NBU would learn from their European peers and implement the knowledge into their own regulatory policies.
According to Newsone, there’s still much ambiguity in the field of cryptocurrency regulation. Several regulators use different classifications. While some view cryptocurrency as legal tender, others view them as investments, assets, or goods. There still seems to be no unanimous decision on whether cryptocurrency can be defined as money, or merely as a means of payment. The confusion in definition is likely to cause problems in creating a regulatory framework in the future.
The submitted bill was a small document and likely to prove to be inadequate in scope. However, the document proposes legal working definitions of the main terms encountered within the cryptocurrency market. In addition, the bill proposed rules which would legalize cryptocurrency mining. The bill does not consider cryptocurrency as legal tender, but rather as a property which can be exchanged for goods and services. The first section of the bill is concerned with the legal definitions of cryptocurrency, exchanges, transactions, blockchains, cryptocurrency owners, as well as cryptocurrency miners. Notably, the bill failed to include a definition of initial coin offerings (ICOs).
According to the ITC.ua, the bill suggests that the central bank of the Ukraine, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), should be appointed as the official regulator of all cryptocurrency activity in the country. In addition, the proposal urged the NBU to create procedural operations for cryptocurrency trading.
The bill also included a section which proposed that the owners of cryptocurrency have the right to choose how they will use their cryptocurrency, be it in exchange for other cryptocurrencies, exchanging them for fiat currencies, or for exchanging them for goods or services. The bill suggested that cryptocurrencies would enjoy the same rights as private property and barter contracts.
According to the ITC.ua publication, the bill seeks to legalize all cryptocurrency activity within the Ukrainian borders.
Despite the bill submission, the NBU has yet to come to a decision regarding its policies on cryptocurrency regulation. Last week, the head of projects and programs at NBU's open market department, Emal Bakhtar, stated that the NBU is currently engaged in looking towards other European countries and learning from their cryptocurrency regulation policies. He expressed his hope that the NBU would learn from their European peers and implement the knowledge into their own regulatory policies.
According to Newsone, there’s still much ambiguity in the field of cryptocurrency regulation. Several regulators use different classifications. While some view cryptocurrency as legal tender, others view them as investments, assets, or goods. There still seems to be no unanimous decision on whether cryptocurrency can be defined as money, or merely as a means of payment. The confusion in definition is likely to cause problems in creating a regulatory framework in the future.