Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development proposed rules to regulate NFTs

What’s new? The Ministry of Economic Development of Russia is developing rules to regulate non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The regulator plans to amend the law “On Digital Financial Assets” and the Civil Code, Kommersant reports. Representatives of the Ministry of Economic Development proposed to establish the legal status for NFTs and the rules of their issue within Russia, as well as measures to protect acquirers of tokens from re-issuance.

Kommersant’s material

What else is known about the initiative? The Ministry plans to introduce relevant amendments to the Civil Code and the draft law on DFAs, as well as the federal project “Regulatory Regulation of the Digital Environment” by the end of 2024. The federal project is aimed at the development and implementation of initiatives that contribute to the development of the digital economy, and the Ministry of Economic Development has been appointed as its responsible executor.

Hearings on the regulation of NFTs were held on June 21 jointly with the Bank of Russia and members of the business community. The Ministry of Economic Development noted that “during the discussion, the initiative was generally supported,” because legal certainty will promote the development of projects in this area.

However, the department noted that it may meet resistance from other regulators. A letter from the Deputy Director of the Central Bank’s Department of Financial Technologies Ekaterina Vikhareva said that the issue of NFT regulation is in the purview of the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank. In a comment to Kommersant’s journalists, representatives of the Ministry of Finance said that the regulation of non-fungible tokens by the department “is not currently being worked on.”

In May, deputies from the “New People” party Anton Tkachev and Vladislav Davankov submitted a draft law to regulate NFTs to the State Duma. They proposed to extend intellectual property protection legislation to non-fungible tokens. A hearing on this draft law is scheduled for the fall of 2022.