Russia Projecting Blockchain Legislation To Accelerate Adoption

Russian government is working on a regulatory framework for the full-fledged use of blocking technology and may have the draft ready within months. This announcement gave Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich on the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.

The bill was recently sent to the lower house of Russia’s parliament, State Duma. The bill was prepared by the finance ministry and Nikolai Zhuravlev of the Council of Federation. It contains provisions that require of crypto exchanges to comply with KYC procedures and tries to set a legal framework for cryptocurrencies.

Russia is known as one of the most active countries in blockchain projects. Almost 10% of all ICOs come from Russia at the current moment.

The largest bank of Russia, Sberbank has participated in a successful blockchain experiment, that generated the country’s first transaction using distributed ledger technology. The pilot also included Russian firms MegaFon and MegaLabs. It was carried out on the IBM platform.

In mid-October, Sberbank joined the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) project.

It is not only the corporate space getting seriously involved. Also the government supports the new technology with President Vladimir Putin himself saying Russia has to be more active in adopting blockchain to avoid being “late in the race.”