Ukraine is the "island of crypto freedom" in Europe, what to expect ?

[AicecreaME]

I have been living in Ukraine for 3 years now, considering this is my fourth year, I can honestly give a good opinion.
1. It's very easy to buy/sell cryptocurrencies like bitcoins here in Ukraine.
2. There are many people interested in the same so you can always find a local buyer.
3. The crypto market is flourishing day by day.
4. More and more stores online are accepting cryptocurrencies, the other day I wanted to buy some stuff for my dogs and apparently there was an option to buy using bitcoins, which honestly baffled me since people were so open towards it.
*
I do believe bitcoins and cryptocurrencies are going to have a safe heavens here. We are going to see bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies becoming legal tender soon enough, fingers crossed.

This is great input coming from a Ukrainian citizen himself. I can say that Ukrainians are indeed fortunate by having government and state officials that are in favor of cryptocurrency because most often, the government sector and central organization in a particular nation isn't really very supportive and do not promote the usage of cryptocurrency with the reason that the country has fiat, to begin with. I think it has a nice benefit especially to the mental health of the crypto users since they don't have to worry that much compared to other countries' citizens. Hopefully, this scenario will also happen in other countries around the globe. Buying, selling, trading, and investing in crypto at ease is such a dream. In addition, the adoption of it in establishments and stores as a mode of payment is also an advantage.

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[kryptqnick]

Below are 2 links to the article (easily translated by google translate)
1. Interview with the Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation on IT Development of Ukraine (https://minfin.com.ua/currency/articles/oleksandr-bornyakov-virtualni-aktivi-mozhut-povnistyu-zaminiti-deyaki-nacionalni-valyuti/)
2. The same Deputy Minister, article "Ukrainians will be allowed to declare their income from cryptocurrencies" (https://biz.ligazakon.net/ru/news/205193_ukraintsam-razreshat-zadeklarirovat-svoi-dokhody-ot-kriptovalyut-proekty)

Interested in your opinion:
1. Will Ukraine become "Crypto Switzerland" or "Island of Crypto Freedom"?
2. What does the opening of such a specific market promise?
3. How can this affect some areas of the economy and which ones?

I created a thread to discuss this stuff earlier, but I guess it didn't get much attention back then. All these events and articles are connected to this huge project of Ukraine's detailed roadmap of crypto adoption. You're right about digital hryvnia and other things, but there's so much more to it. Not to repeat what I wrote earlier in different words, I'll just quote myself:

~ As for Bitcoin not being mentioned in the article, it's just a very small press release, but Bitcoin is mentioned multiple times in the full report from the meetings.
~ There are detailed time frames in the full report in Ukrainian. They intend to pass the law on virtual assets in September 2021, work on taxation and KYC policies in January 2022, make it possible to officially exchange cryptos for fiat and vice versa + establish the school program on virtual assets by July 2022, and open a master's program on DeFi in May 2024 (among many other things).

While for now it all sounds very good, things can always go wrong in Ukraine. For instance, the tax rate is not completely established yet. Also, the full report (linked in the quoted message) mentions using Bitcoin to pay for goods, but it says that people will be able to do it with custodial wallets. So it's not clear whether non-custodial wallets will be allowed and whether they'll be limited to certain activities. Also, things like whether there will be obligatory KYC or not also aren't clear and, according to the roadmap, won't be for a while. Ukraine's my country, so I really want this all to work out and for it to be crypto-friendly, but let's not jump ahead of ourselves yet.

A few years back there was warfare in the eastern part of Ukraine, and close to 100,000 died there. A ceasefire was signed in 2014 and it is holding till now. But a large portion of the eastern part (Donbass) is still outside the authority of the Kiev regime. And the Crimean peninsula was annexed by Russia around that time. The case of Crimea is complex, because it used to be a part of Russia until 1954. Around 80% of the population is ethnic Russian. But for some unknown reason, the region was transferred to Ukraine in 1954.

Sorry, but you're wrong on many accounts. The death toll from the Russo-Ukrainian war is around 14 thousand, not 100 thousand. Also, there's no ceasefire, and the war has been ongoing for 7 years. It's just not as violent as it used to be in the early days, but some people die every month, and there are shootings every single day. The case of Crimea is complex, but the reason behind the transfer isn't unknown, and was done because of the following:

the integral character of the economy, the territorial proximity and the close economic and cultural ties between the Crimea Province and the Ukrainian SSR

[SquallLeonhart]

I don't think that Serbia will be admitted in to the EU as long as they don't recognize Kosovo as a separate sovereign nation. And no regime in Serbia will be willing to do this, because the Kosovo issue is still very emotional for the local voters. One compromise deal would see the Serb inhabited Northern Kosovo swapped for the Muslim inhabited Presevo valley (currently a part of Serbia).

Demographic changes in Bosnia is working in the EU's direction, as the country recently became Muslim majority. A few weeks back, they passed a controversial law, which would make it a criminal offense for anyone to suggest that there was no genocide against Muslims during the civil war. Serbs oppose this law, because it claims that only Muslims were victimized during the civil war.

Serbians mistake genocide versus war, and that is the law that was passed and that makes sense. srebrenitsa was a genocide at best, Serbs wanted to kill every single muslim bosnian they found, doesn't matter if it is man, women or child or elderly, they killed everyone, over 8 thousand were slaughtered like cattle, all thanks of the dutch army as well, letting Serbs with guns pass into a zone with Bosnians who had no guns.

A war between Bosnia and Serbia is understandable, both sides can kill each other and it will simply be called a war, and to deny that no Serbian died there would be idiotic, but to call srebrenitsa a war conflict would be just racist and genocidal, nothing more. I am quite happy that Bosnia is finally getting some power, for decades Serbia did whatever they want to them, and nobody in the world intervened, even helped Serbia to commit war crimes, finally we are seeing consequences for them.

[paxmao]

Now including countries like Bosnia, Ukraine, Georgia, Macedonia, Moldovia.etc is supposedly on the "pipeline", but I am not expecting any real movement for the next 20 years at least. Turkey is on a higher priority compared to these countries, and despite the romantic relationship between Angela Merkel and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, they haven't yet made it in to the EU.

You have forgotten Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo as some of the candidates for the EU, and these are perhaps the highest priorities because Serbia outside the EU is increasingly falling under the influence of its Russian brothers, while pro-Serbian politics is in power in Montenegro, which together with Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is a real barrel of gunpowder that can explode at any moment.

Turkey is a completely different story, they want to join the EU without transforming into a European country - which in my opinion is a mission impossible given Turkey's worldview.

But I hope that the world community will have enough strength, conscience and understanding to help Ukraine maintain its integrity, end this terrorist war, and become attractive for investments, including in the field of blockchain technologies.

And I hope that the EU and the US will have an interest in putting Ukraine under their protection and helping it get on the right track. Although there will always be some higher interests at stake, because no matter how much the US and the EU are publicly against Russia, I am sure they will never risk any moves that would cause bad consequences for them.

At the end of the day, everyone is on their own - because when my country was bleeding under the attack of Serbian butchers in 1991, no one came to help, but we managed to defend ourselves - our Alamo was stand for 3 months, brave 1800 against 36 000 - 42 000 butchers.

I think that the European Union, as much as US or any other large and well armed and commercially strong nation, are perfectly able to exert a great degree of influence without the need to incorporate the countries themselves into the European Union.

Do not take this as racist, but the European Union should be very sceptic and wary about any country joining that does not really share the core values of Europe, such as rule of law, respect, democracy, etc... The EU is already having issues with Bulgaria on the sexual discrimination and bigotry and, in my view, should not ever incorporate countries with large Islamic groups of population, as Islam, as it is interpreted by most, is incompatible with the European core values.

[Sithara007]

Serbians mistake genocide versus war, and that is the law that was passed and that makes sense. srebrenitsa was a genocide at best, Serbs wanted to kill every single muslim bosnian they found, doesn't matter if it is man, women or child or elderly, they killed everyone, over 8 thousand were slaughtered like cattle, all thanks of the dutch army as well, letting Serbs with guns pass into a zone with Bosnians who had no guns.

A war between Bosnia and Serbia is understandable, both sides can kill each other and it will simply be called a war, and to deny that no Serbian died there would be idiotic, but to call srebrenitsa a war conflict would be just racist and genocidal, nothing more. I am quite happy that Bosnia is finally getting some power, for decades Serbia did whatever they want to them, and nobody in the world intervened, even helped Serbia to commit war crimes, finally we are seeing consequences for them.

You are equating "Bosnian" with Muslim, which I think is false. Bosnia is the region and those who reside there (irrespective of the ethnicity - Serb, Muslim, Croat, Roma - are called as Bosnian). Now I would say that it would be another mistake to claim that the Bosnian Muslims and the Bosnian Croats didn't committed any war crimes and only the Bosnian Serbs did them. For starters, there were thousands of radical Islamists from Afghanistan and other Muslim nations fighting alongside the Bosnian Muslims. I don't want to label all of them as angels. 

Sorry, but you're wrong on many accounts. The death toll from the Russo-Ukrainian war is around 14 thousand, not 100 thousand. Also, there's no ceasefire, and the war has been ongoing for 7 years. It's just not as violent as it used to be in the early days, but some people die every month, and there are shootings every single day. The case of Crimea is complex, but the reason behind the transfer isn't unknown, and was done because of the following:

the integral character of the economy, the territorial proximity and the close economic and cultural ties between the Crimea Province and the Ukrainian SSR

The death toll is at least 25,000-30,000 IMO. There are sources which claim that it may be as high as 100,000. And irrespective of how many people died, it is clear that people lost their loved ones for no fault of theirs.

[DrBeer]

The death toll is at least 25,000-30,000 IMO. There are sources which claim that it may be as high as  100,000. And irrespective of how many people died, it is clear that people lost their loved ones for no fault of theirs.

I have a proposal that will allow you to come to reality - please indicate the sources where the figures of 25.000-30.000 and 100,000 dead are reasonably given?
I always refer to official data, including from OSCE missions and similar structures, which have no "personal benefit" from data manipulation

[bryant.coleman]

I have a proposal that will allow you to come to reality - please indicate the sources where the figures of 25.000-30.000 and 100,000 dead are reasonably given?
I always refer to official data, including from OSCE missions and similar structures, which have no "personal benefit" from data manipulation

Irrespective of the death toll, the truth is that the vast majority of the dead were civilians. I don't know how many Russian citizens died in Donbass, but I guess at the most the figure should be in three digits. Donbass was supposed to be the richest part of Ukraine, due to the coal deposits. But now majority of the population is destitute. And for Ukraine, they have to deal with the status as "active conflict zone", which would hamper their potential entry to the EU/NATO and discourage bringing in foreign investment.

[DrBeer]

I have a proposal that will allow you to come to reality - please indicate the sources where the figures of 25.000-30.000 and 100,000 dead are reasonably given?
I always refer to official data, including from OSCE missions and similar structures, which have no "personal benefit" from data manipulation

Irrespective of the death toll, the truth is that the vast majority of the dead were civilians. I don't know how many Russian citizens died in Donbass, but I guess at the most the figure should be in three digits. Donbass was supposed to be the richest part of Ukraine, due to the coal deposits. But now majority of the population is destitute. And for Ukraine, they have to deal with the status as "active conflict zone", which would hamper their potential entry to the EU/NATO and discourage bringing in foreign investment.

We are adults, and I believe that the dialogue should be based on arguments and facts. And if this is not the first time you repeat a contradictory figure, still indicate where you get such data from, this is important.

Regarding the "wealth of the region" - such regions have always been, on the contrary, poor. The problem of Donbass and Lugansk is that the regions are highly marginalized, with a specific "subculture" that was formed in 1930-1950, when the indigenous population was removed from these lands (Ukrainians were evicted, persecuted, etc.), and the lumpenized extras from the RSFSR were settled. Then a large number of prisoners (around a huge number of prisons), a corrupt police force (an accompanying "product" of prisons) were added. I was constantly present in this region (Donetsk, Yenakiyevo, Gorlovka, ...) from 2003 to 2012, and I know what I am talking about. All the "wealth" of the region was in the hands of local oligarchs, such as Akhmetov. People of the region, through propaganda, since the times of the USSR, were told about what a rich region it is, and how it almost "feeds" the rest of Ukraine. What gave them a painful "rich region" complex. BUT in fact, this region has always been subsidized, and lived just at the expense of the rest of Ukraine. On the one hand, some of the miners had good salaries, but the total majority lived on a penny, lived in very poor conditions, and most importantly, they had no prospects. Or, more correctly, they have always justified their poverty by the fact that they are "miners, and they have no other knowledge, and they do not want to learn something new." And now - in 2014, separatists and their supporters ran around with slogans "Stop feeding Ukraine", and now they stand in queues to get half a pot of primitive pea porridge for free ...
And about the losses - it is difficult to say exactly what the real losses of Russia are in these zones, since "the most honest ruler Putin", already in 2015, trying to hide the loss of personnel of the Russian armed forces, at the legislative level, categorically forbade disclosing data on "losses of the Russian army , in peacetime. "

And yet - let's get back to the topic of the topic? Otherwise, we are moving more into the field of politics.

[DrBeer]

A bit of news about the Ukrainian crypto market (in this case, about software companies) and around it, for the last 3 months:
- Ukrainian company ELEKS opens an office in Switzerland
https://ain.ua/en/2021/09/01/eleks-opens-an-office-in-switzerland/
- Ukrainian SoftServe opens its office in Dubai
https://ain.ua/en/2021/07/30/softserve-opens-office-in-dubai/
- Ukrainians sell technology to Audi, earn € 14M - the story of Apostera (not about blockchain, but a high-tech solution)
https://ain.ua/en/2021/07/12/story-of-apostera/
- Startup Zerion, co-founded by Ukrainian, raises $ 8.2 million
https://ain.ua/en/2021/07/08/zerion-raises-8-2-million/
- Ukrainian cryptocurrency startup Weld Money attracted investments
Concorde Capital (Ukraine), Magnus Capital (USA) and 7 O'Clock Capital (China) have invested in Ukrainian startup Weld Money, which allows you to pay with cryptocurrency like a traditional bank card.
https://ain.ua/2021/08/30/investicii-v-weld-money/

[wack slacker]

Using Bitcoin can counteract the effects of manipulation and economic sabotage from outside the country. Ukraine's support for cryptocurrencies is a legitimate defense. Although the idea is like that, consideration should be given to including crypto in the framework. Maybe a few years from now, they will have a country that is adopting Bitcoin, El Salvador. If the results are good, they will embark on the adoption of Bitcoin like El Salvador.

[shield132]

Ukraine only? What about Georgia? This country is great option in this case also because cryptocurrencies aren't taxed here in a regular ways (people who mine don't have to pay tax, also, people who receive cryptocurrencies and withdraw it, don't have to pay any tax when income isn't from own business).
Also, they created free industrial zone exclusively for BitFury (until that, there was no free industrial zone). Electricity is cheap and it gets especially cheap when you get them in free industrial zone.
Also (again), the government cooperated with Bitfury to help on developing and adopting of blockchain technologies (one successful project is land title registry).

[DrBeer]

Ukraine only? What about Georgia? This country is great option in this case also because cryptocurrencies aren't taxed here in a regular ways (people who mine don't have to pay tax, also, people who receive cryptocurrencies and withdraw it, don't have to pay any tax when income isn't from own business).
Also, they created free industrial zone exclusively for BitFury (until that, there was no free industrial zone). Electricity is cheap and it gets especially cheap when you get them in free industrial zone.
Also (again), the government cooperated with Bitfury to help on developing and adopting of blockchain technologies (one successful project is land title registry).

O! Georgia! I love this country! This year, with Covid and all the attendant problems, I could not fly to rest there, I'm very sorry! A wonderful country, beautiful nature, amazing history and culture, wonderful people, unforgettable national cuisine!
By the way, it was the passion for cryptocurrency that made it possible to invest very well in the tourism business in Georgia! In a word - I highly recommend visiting Georgia - memories and "warmth" are guaranteed to you!

[Ozero]

Yesterday, that is, on September 8, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted in the second reading bill # 3637, which allows to legalize virtual assets and cryptocurrency business in Ukraine.

This law is basic and defines the legal status of virtual assets in Ukraine, provides legal protection to users and market participants. Thus, foreign and Ukrainian crypto-exchanges will officially be able to work in this country, and banks - to open accounts for crypto companies.

The volume of transactions in Ukraine with cryptocurrency is about $ 150-200 million per day, and their capitalization is more than $ 2 billion.

Thus, Ukraine has become one of the most crypto-friendly countries. It would be nice if they also accept, as expected, a tax within five percent of the profits in the cryptocurrency.

[DrBeer]

A few clarifications on the adopted law:
The Verkhovna Rada at a meeting on September 8 supported in the second reading the bill №3637, which will legalize virtual assets and business in this area in Ukraine.
This law is basic and defines the legal status of virtual assets, thereby providing legal protection to users and market participants. Thus, foreign and Ukrainian crypto-exchanges will officially be able to operate, and banks will be able to open accounts for crypto companies.
In addition, this means that Ukrainians will be able to declare their income in virtual assets.
The ministry explains that the law is based on the current standards for regulating operations with virtual assets of the international group for combating money laundering (FATF). They establish rules for service providers related to the circulation of virtual assets and help to shade this market.

The market regulator will be the Ministry of Digital Industry, except in some cases, where the NBU or the National Securities Commission enters. The agency will facilitate the adaptation of Ukrainian legislation on the circulation of virtual assets with international standards and protect the rights of market participants.
In order to carry out activities related to the circulation of virtual assets, service providers will have to disclose ownership structure in order to be able to identify the ultimate beneficial owners.
https://www.epravda.com.ua/rus/news/2021/09/8/677595/

This means that Ukraine is becoming very attractive for the development of crypto projects, and any solutions working with or on cryptocurrency