Bitcoin Forum

Russian, "Deputy finance minister, adopted a wait -and -see approach with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies". He said " mining or use of the bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will no longer be seen as a criminal offence." The news is from Russian largest news agency,TASS.

To be "seen as a criminal offense" and get actually prosecuted for a criminal offense are two different things as far as I can tell. Someone seeing something is no more than his own opinion while criminal offenses are codified and brought to criminal courts which make judgments. This seems to be a stale news already, and you didn't even provide any links. This wait-and-see approach has been there since at least July, 2016...

And the longer they follow it the better

Russia has seen that other countries are now moving into cryptocurrency and they dont want their country to be the last in terms of financial innovations. But possibly the wait and see approach is an experiment as to what are the effects that crypocurrency to their country. If disadvantages is heavier than the positive effects then maybe they will ban bitcoins again. Or there statement could imply that depending on the use of cryptocurrency as long as it is legal transactions then you will not be doing a criminal offence.

rusia really ned to make their head right, they first allowed bitcoin, then they banned it because of CP and because they feared for their currency that is also used more than bitcoin from terrorist

terrorism was also another excuse to not accept the cryptocurrency, then they removed again this and now they are talking that they will remain in standby

i think they just want to earn money on it and they are waiting for the value to increase before accepting it

I have been thinking the same thing, it's very weird obviously. I have a speculation like this: first scheme they ban bitcoin say it's used as criminal currency and any illegal activity, ect to decrease the price. Then second scheme they buy some bitcoin to earn profit.
Or they just in research to see how people panic to market based on fundamental.

It is only weird to those who either don't know how matters stand in reality or don't understand the gory details behind the moves of the Russian government in respect to Bitcoin. First of all, Bitcoin has never been banned in Russia, without understanding this any further discussion makes no sense altogether. There were a lot of threats from government officials and allegedly some drafts having been elaborated on which would have banned Bitcoin and criminalized its use, but basically nothing had come out of it. This agenda was mainly pushed by the Ministry of Finance and their primary aim was not to involve the Tax Service of Russia (which is part of the former) with taxing Bitcoin since that would be a hell of a job. Further, after mostly the same officials started to talk about treating Bitcoin as a foreign currency, the Tax Service itself issued a letter in which it clearly stated that Bitcoin is not their business altogether...

If you look at the issue this way, it will be perfectly clear why the Russian government acts in this manner exactly

And I have heard that Russian government plan to make a law to all bitcoin users pay tax from their earnings to the government, the same way like businessmen pays taxes from their profit or working people pay tax from their salary.

The Tax Service of Russia has already spiked this rumor itself

It makes no sense to impose a tax which nobody is going to pay and there are no means to make people pay it either (everyone should always remember what Napoleon had once said). Some years ago there was a progressive income tax in Russia, and everyone was evading to pay it in full. After the government had set the flat income tax rate at 13%, the income tax revenue increased 8 (!) times. In fact, the government is interested in keeping the status quo toward Bitcoin, i.e. not legally regulate it as long as possible

they made it illegal at some point i remember it clearly because it was promoting trrorism they said and CP...those were putin words, it's not so different than banning it, now they are simply undecied again

Bitcoin is not illegal, it is about only illegal for their country if they do some illegal works. Using a bitcoin is one of the best technology does. Bitcoin is like a virtual money, where we can buy some things, and payout our cash. For now, you can do some things in bitcoin, but, you do not have any securities about your money

You are obviously thinking it up

Maybe, you read some news article claiming that Bitcoin was about to be banned in Russia, but there was no such law outright banning Bitcoin. If you are going to challenge this stance, I guess you should point to the actual law allegedly doing that. But I can assure you that you are just being misinformed. To adopt a federal law in Russia, the draft should pass three readings in the State Duma, and then it should be signed by the President. That would be quickly and widely made known to everyone. Besides, I don't remember Putin saying something very negative toward Bitcoin. In fact, what he actually (https://youtu.be/eJwmfE2TAhg?t=129) said may be interpreted as a neutral attitude (if not friendly)

first of all can you please include the link to this news, preferably this news in Russian because all the English news sources tend to misinterpret any kind of news that is not originating in English speaking countries such as Russia and China.

also i have to say most countries have had this approach that they are not saying bitcoin is illegal nor saying it is legal.
but one thing about Russia that always interests me is that they have had so many big events regarding bitcoin such as conferences in their capital which shows they have never been negative about bitcoin.

Russia and Bitcoin reminds me of this video ---> Cheetah vs Porcupine {not for sensitive viewers} https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oSrFFvfOAo

You have this hungry beast that do not know how to take down a prickly prey. Bitcoin can satisfy their hunger, but at what cost? If Bitcoin

gets attacked, it just turns to another angle. {Black market trading}  ;D ....Ok, in the video... the Cheetah won, but at what cost?

Indeed most countries are watching on how bitcoin will affect the economic scale of their country.  Even in my country, government is undecided whether to put restriction or regulate Bitcoin.   They have been studying and watching Bitcoin since 2014 and yet there is no solid announcement on how my country will stand on Bitcoin issue.

The way I see it, except is very profitable for Russian ministry of finance bitcoin users to pay tax they saw and understood what happened with Chinese after the devaluation of yuan and capital controls and may be they try to find ways how to face something like that. A wait and see strategy means neutrality and gives hope to Russian bitcoiners. Furthermore, like Xester post above central banks of Russia, China and UK are exploring blockchain and experiment with their digital currenccies https://www.ft.com/content/f15d3ab6-750d-11e6-bf48-b372cdb1043a. So imho, will see and will decide what will do after the experimentation and percentage of people's adoption.

actually not the news was even here on bitcoin talk and in the legal section, heck even wiki was reporting it

the problem is that they changed their mind so offen that is now pointless to talk about it

because somethign that is illegal for 1 month, it's not really illegal

Stop talking outright bullshit again

There is a difference between someone reporting something like banning Bitcoin in Russia and actual law making it into the corpus juris. Until such a law is accepted for real, you can't possibly claim that Bitcoin has been banned. Besides, if they really passed this or similar law and then changed their mind (as you claim), there should be another law revoking the ban. Where are these? If you say, nevertheless, that even Wiki is reporting this, why don't you just post a link, and I check it right on the spot without much ado?

Is this the official statement? Where you get this informations? If its true, then this a huge progress of bitcoin. This is a good start for bitcoin out there.
 
Edit: i just saw the news. https://news.bitcoin.com/russias-relationship-bitcoin-brighter-days-ahead/
This is really great!

That's a better move from one of the largest country in the world. In the past Russia made several committee's to track the users and indicate them as criminals. Now the effort to give users the freedom to use is a good move and they too have made teams to make research about the goodness bitcoin to implement it into the financial system in future if found worthy.

Russia has long does not consider the use and production cryptocurrency as a criminal offense. In addition, the government of the country changes its position in relation to Bitcoins. If they had wanted to ban cryptocurrency, now no such prohibition

You obviously see it wrong. The Russian tax service has great problems collecting taxes even of earnings coming from activities involving fiat, which is relatively easy to trace, and you say that it will be very profitable for the Russian ministry of finance to levy taxes on Bitcoin users (as far as I understood what you meant to say). It simply makes no sense since the Tax Service will be obliged through the law to go after all Russian bitcoiners which will still defiantly not pay this tax..

And that will wreak total chaos

Is good to know that Before Russian banned bitcoin, then as time goes by they revoke what they accused to bitcoin as criminal offense. And now this country is one of the bitcoin enthusiast who became open for it good scheme and edge of it to any people.

Bitcoin is a new phenomenon and nobody wants to tread into the unknow without taking extra steps to defend itself first, most of these countries especially the powerful countries want control, financial control in particular and with Bitcoin,it is easy to loss it. I think is a good thing that USA, Russia and China let their citizens use Bitcoin for now.

Then thats a great news. Bitcoin cannot be stop. What is the reason why they change their mind? Russia is one of the richest country in the world. If massive adoption happen. I think theres a chance they will be at the level of China in terms of trading. China is having some issues right now. Its weakens the progress of bitcoin there. Japan and Russia is the possible next bitcoin capital.of the world.

news from Russia have always been so weird in my opinion, and it is mostly because the resources for news that we have access to in English are 99% shit. they post anything that is a click-bait. they manipulate the news, and even misunderstand it themselves.
when you hear about a Russian news about bitcoin ask a Russian guy and you'll always see the news was never what you read in English!

What makes you think so?

I guess they didn't change anything. As I said it a few times in the past, officially banning Bitcoin would make Russia a black sheep of sorts (which Putin doesn't love), so they took to threats without supporting them by any legal action. Now they seem to be allegedly accepting Bitcoin but in fact nothing has changed as of yet, and there are still no laws regulating Bitcoin. Just yesterday another "Russian" Bitcoin exchange was added to the list of banned resources, Putin style (say one thing and do a completely different one). This is directed more toward ordinary people since die-hard Bitcoiners don't give a fuck. It seems that Russian government actually considers Bitcoin as another (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_(Ponzi_scheme_company)) MMM (literary millions of people lost their money in this Ponzi scheme in 1990s), and the authorities don't want this to happen again

http://s018.radikal.ru/i501/1701/43/1ae81045dca4.jpg

They are afraid that simple folks will start heavily "investing" their last savings in Bitcoin

I just don't understand of how does Bitcoin accused by that criminal offense, without any proof of evidence, then they banned bitcoin before and they revoke it because they saw how people will patronize the bitcoin, so the demand is rapidly instantly goes to high value.

But if you have your best tech analysts look over the code they would be able to tell you it's not a ponzi so that should just be a given at this point. Well, it's a step in the right direction. The strange ban couldn't last forever unless Putin was really trying to make Russia a black sheep like you said.

In fact, they are right, at least to a degree

Bitcoin is in fact a pyramid scheme of sorts, which I explained many times already. It mostly remains a purely financial asset with nearly 0 real world usage and no intrinsic value. In this manner, most benefits that Bitcoin provides come through the speculation channel as of yet (as profits due to capital gains). The code being there doesn't change anything in this respect. If people pour their life-time savings and Bitcoin collapses soon thereafter, that would be exactly that, i.e. another MMM, now all around the world. Previously, I didn't give it much attention but it also pretty well explains such mixed attitude of the Russian authorities toward Bitcoin