Putin Orders Parliament to Regulate ICOs

According to official Kremlin documents published this week, Putin signed several orders intended to regulate cryptocurrency usage within the country. Most notably, the orders mandated that Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and central bank chief Elvira Nabiullina must draft regulations that bring ICOs in line with existing laws governing securities.

Medvedev is also tasked with two more significant responsibilities. One order instructs him to implement regulations that will require Russian cryptocurrency mining operations to register with the government and determine the appropriate procedure for the government to tax income garnered from those operations. Another requires him to determine the legal status of cryptocurrencies used within the financial sphere "based on the obligation of the ruble as the only legal tender in the Russian Federation". All of these tasks must be completed by July 1, 2018.