The rule is simple: “The government-authorized body, in agreement with the Bank of Russia, has the right to establish a ban or restrictions on transactions with digital currency.”

The Central Bank has been trying to achieve exactly this since the beginning of 2022: the ability to ban any operations with cryptocurrencies. Few believed in such a prospect. Is it a reality now?

Ban Bitcoin? Easy

The "authorized body" of the government will be Rosfinmonitoring or the Ministry of Finance, legal experts interviewed by Bits.media believe. It is this body that will be able to take and one fine day, say on November 7, prohibit transactions with a specific cryptocurrency. Or with all at once, says Mikhail Uspensky, a lawyer and member of the State Duma expert council on legislative regulation of cryptocurrencies.

Indeed, if the government-authorized body deems it necessary, it will be able to prohibit transactions with a specific cryptocurrency - bitcoin, ether, anything, agrees Denis Polyakov, head of the Digital Economy practice at the law firm GMT Legal.

However, if the decision concerns all digital currencies in Russia at once, says a lawyer at GMT Legal, there is an important nuance. It is in the concept of "foreign digital rights" (FDR), which was born together with the new law.

Will Bitcoin Be Banned? You Can Try It in Court

Armed with the term ICP and applying it to the cryptocurrency of interest, you can try to continue making transactions and providing services - fighting back in court. At least theoretically, Denis Polyakov suggests: "all thoughts are still just theory, since there is no practice yet."

According to the lawyer of GMT Legal, the following cryptocurrencies can be considered as PPI:

Those that have an issuer (anonymous and DeFi coins - bypass).

Which secure some rights of the holders (almost all cryptocurrencies, except, perhaps, meme tokens, which have no functionality)

Which are not securities (minus some security tokens, since in most countries of the world there is no concept of digital assets, and all tokens that have the functionality of distributing income from the project are most often recognized as securities).