Russia’s State Duma wants to regulate block reward mining as business

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Russia’s block reward miners could be getting officially recognized and regulated in the near future. The country’s State Duma is weighing classifying mining as a form of entrepreneurship under local business laws.

Russia has attracted its fair share of block reward miners in recent years. As Minery CEO told CoinGeek, the Siberian region has especially appealed to the miners as it has very cheap electricity rates and the very low temperatures means they spend less on cooling equipment.

Russia may now be about to officially recognize this industry according to Anatoly Aksakov, the chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets. Speaking to state-owned news agency TASS on the sidelines of Moscow Financial Forum, Aksakov stated that it’s about time the Russian government regulated the industry.

“Since this [block reward mining] is a type of entrepreneurial activity, obviously, it is necessary to enter it into the state register, assign a code to it as a type of entrepreneurial activity and introduce taxation,” he remarked.

The lawmaker revealed that the regulations for the industry are in the pipeline, now that Russia has broken new ground with the bill on digital currencies.

Aksakov further noted that Russia needs to implement more defining regulations to encompass all the varying aspects of digital currencies. The bill “On Digital Financial Assets” was passed in July last year and it recognized digital currencies while prohibiting their use for payments.

However, the bill didn’t include many other aspects which are critical to the success of the industry, such as taxation and mining.

Aksakov further noted that even with the 2020 bill, digital currencies still lack a clear definition. According to him, while they are touted as currencies, they act more as a speculative financial instrument, and this would require more stringent regulations.

“We still need to discuss what digital currency actually is, although we call it currency, it is rather used as a financial instrument, or a financial asset that is a subject to investment, rather than a means of payment.”

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