Russian financial regulators are considering introducing additional measures on cryptocurrency-to-fiat conversion involving banks.
According to Russia’s Financial Monitoring Service, Rosfinmonitoring deputy head, German Neglyad, the move is meant to weed out money laundering incidents and other related vices.
Under the proposed regulations, the Risfinmotoring will track the utilization of proceeds from cryptocurrency after the conversation to fiat. However, cryptocurrency proponents believe the move is laying the ground for abolishing digital assets like bitcoin.
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Banks already monitoring crypto proceeds
German confirmed that banks are already monitoring transactions.
“Banks have already started to pay attention to exchange transactions. That is, when they see that a transaction came after the exchange of virtual assets into hard currency, they have already started to assess them and report to us about these transactions.”
German added the country is working with foreign players to track cross-border to ensure bitcoin transactions do no aid terrorism.
The planned regulation comes barely a year after President Vladimir Putin legalized cryptocurrencies in a law that did not categorize digital assets as legal tender.
With the legalization of digital assets, owners must declare if they have any cryptocurrencies alongside what they own physically.
The law already requires banks to open up cryptocurrency exchanges under the supervision of the central bank.
The new proposed regulations come after cryptocurrencies led by bitcoin experienced massive growth. Cryptocurrency critics have cited the ability to aid vice-like money laundering as the reason to outlaw digital assets.
