Cryptovalues in the Russian Law: Surrogates, «Other Property» and Digital Money

Abstract

The article describes the key issues of legal regulation of cryptocurrency, which emerged in Russian doctrine and jurisprudence in 2015-2020. The article considers nature of “ownership” of cryptocurrency, status of cryptocurrency as an object of property rights, legal ratio of “cryptocurrency”, “money” and “money surrogate” in Russian law. Author describes the chronology of legislative activity concerning cryptocurrency and related issues, marks the main milestones. The author compares the problems arising in practice with the solutions proposed by the Russian law. The structure of the article fits the purpose of the research — to determine the problems of cryptocurrency' legal regime and to evaluate how Russian Law coped with arising tasks. The first two parts of the article are devoted to civil and financial issues of the legal regime of the cryptocurrency and to the proposed legal options. The third part of the article is devoted to the bills and adopted laws on the legal regime of the cryptocurrency. The work of the legislator has been reviewed and evaluated from various perspectives. As a result, the conclusion was made that the Russian regulator gravitates towards a prohibitive cryptocurrency policy. Such policy is determined both by the traditions of the Russian market regulation and by Russia's international obligations as a member of FATF. The author states that during the development of Russian laws on cryptocurrency, a full analysis of the consequences of the regulatory ban was not carried out, the volume of the cryptocurrency market was not estimated, and alternative bills were not considered by officials. The courts, which could, to a certain extent, assume the role of filling the legal gap, failed to take on this role and have only noted the legal uncertainties regarding the cryptocurrency. It is expected that soon the Russian legislator will establish sanctions for violations of cryptocurrency laws and define obligations and prohibitions in the area of crypto asset issuance and trading. After that discussion about the nature of cryptocurrency rights and the civil law regime of cryptocurrency will be closed.