Digital Assets Regulation and Practice in Russia

The study provides the evaluation of the Russian regulation of the digital asset market as well as the analysis of compliance of the Russian approach with the international. The work is focused on digital currencies (or cryptocurrencies), digital rights, stablecoins and NFTs. The work concluded that Russian legislation does not reflect a unified classification of digital assets. In addition, the legislation contains rules governing only one type of digital assets – digital rights. Meanwhile, other financial regulators believe that digital rights should be regulated as financial instruments. Also, at the international level, recommendations and standards are being developed for the regulation of digital currencies and stablecoins, which are not even reflected in Russian legislation. The work formulates proposals to improve the Russian regulation of the digital asset market. It is proposed to introduce a unified classification of digital assets into legislation, to address the gap in the regulation of stablecoins and to develop the regulation of digital currencies within the experimental legal regime.