“It is impossible to pay (in Russia) either in Monopoly tokens or with money from World of Tanks,” said Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev. So he commented on the upcoming law on cryptocurrencies.
The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation is preparing a law on cryptocurrencies. According to him, for creating such currencies “specifically for settlements” they will be imprisoned, and for calculating them they will face administrative punishment.
The official position of the Ministry of Finance is that in Russia all payments should be made in the state currency – in rubles. And there are no questions about this: this is exactly what is written in the Constitution.
However, it is unclear whether the purchase of content in games for domestic currency purchased for rubles will be considered a calculation.
In theory, it shouldn’t. This is evidenced by both the quote itself, where Moiseev compares the World of Tanks currency with “Monopoly” tokens, and the definition of cryptocurrency, which was given by the head of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market Anatoly Aksakov.
The Constitution declares that the ruble is the means of payment on the territory of the Russian Federation. It follows from this that it is impossible to pay in anything else — neither in Monopoly tokens, nor with money from World of Tanks, nor with any other receipts, subscriptions, notes. You can pay only in the ruble of the Russian Federation. If you do not have enough rubles of the Russian Federation, you can exchange your bitcoins for rubles and go for rubles to buy a pie in LavkaLavka. You can do this, but you can't come to LavkaLavka and pay with bitcoins — this is a constitutional principle. Now there is no punishment for violating the constitutional principle. What are we doing now? We will describe in more detail the implementation of the constitutional principle and the punishment for various degrees of its violation.
Deputy Head of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation
Cryptocurrency will be treated as property that can be traded, but cannot be used as a monetary unit, as a means of payment.
head of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market
At the same time, Wargaming hastened to announce today that gaming “gold” is not a cryptocurrency and is used only within the company’s product: “it is impossible to buy real things with game currency or exchange it for ordinary money.”
Most likely, the upcoming bill, which will be presented next year, will not affect in-game currencies, although their mention in the context of the ban is at least alarming. At the same time, all Russian gaming companies and startups that are currently engaged in cryptocurrencies will either have to change their registration as soon as possible, or refuse to work at all in this new market segment.
Also on the topic:
- In Russia, the identification of gamers by phone number will be introducedIn Russia, a law is being prepared to regulate video games
- Sources: RBC, RNS, Wargaming
Photo: RBC, RIA