Bitcoins by calculation: how cryptocurrency is regulated in other countries and Ukraine

The cryptocurrency market is growing, and its total market capitalization is now nearly $2.3 trillion. And if before cryptocurrencies didn't fall under any legal field in the world, then for several years they have been actively introduced into the economies of different countries, legalizing the digital currency at the state level.

Ukraine already needs legal regulation of the cryptocurrency market, as in our country alone the volume of transactions with virtual assets per day is about 150-200 million dollars. Lawmakers tried to regulate the market by issuing a draft law on virtual assets №3637.

The project would define virtual assets as property, thus enabling owners to protect their rights to them. The activities of cryptocurrency exchange would be registered by the Ministry of Finance, and all persons providing services in the field of virtual assets would be entered into the register and would have to submit appropriate reports on their actions. But the main thing the draft law would do was to put cryptocurrencies into civil circulation, thus obliging owners to pay taxes on cryptocurrency transactions and declare the income received from them.

The document passed both readings in parliament, but Volodymyr Zelenskyy vetoed it; its implementation would have been too expensive for the state budget due to the need to create a new body to regulate. Instead, the President proposes to include the regulation of the circulation of virtual assets in the competence of the National Commission on Securities and Stock Market; with this conclusion, the document was returned to the committees of Parliament.

It is important to note that it's not the first law that has been used to legalize cryptocurrencies. There were 7 of them, and they started submitting documents to the Rada in 2017. Only the last draft №3637 has gone the furthest, and it is quite possible that in case of its completion it will be accepted.

We decided to see how cryptocurrencies "in-law" work in other countries; perhaps someone else's experience can help Ukraine.