Digital Assets: Legal Challenges and Development Prospects

The purpose of the master dissertation is to identify the reasons that hinder the development of the domestic market of digital financial assets (hereinafter - DA). To identify these reasons, the author conducts a comprehensive study of digital financial assets. Firstly, the author forms the reader's general idea of the essence of DAs by highlighting the principles of blockchain technology functioning, outlining the place of DAs in the system of token types and characterising the current state of the DA market in the Russian Federation. Secondly, in order to identify the best practices in DA regulation, the author compares approaches to the regulation of digital assets in the USA, Switzerland, Malta, the EU and Russia. Based on the results of the comparison, the author identifies certain best practices that can be adopted into domestic regulation. Finally, the author analyses the provisions of draft laws in the DA sphere and those provisions that have entered into legal force as a result of the legislative process. The above analysis reveals conflicts of ideas and practices as the main cause of gaps and inconsistencies in domestic regulation. To eliminate the latter, the author formulates proposals to improve domestic DA regulation aimed at implementing the original ideas of the authors of draft laws in the field of DA, taking into account the existing regulation and the practice of its application.