After the Verkhovna Rada announced in the past few days that it had approved a bill to legalize cryptocurrencies, which would make the use of digital assets much easier in the country, the Verkhovna Rada revealed that it had approved the passage of the Cryptocurrency Act by 272 votes.
After the passage, Mikhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation stated:
This will legalize cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency exchanges, and Ukrainians can protect their assets from potential misuse or fraud.
The law paves the way for setting up a framework to regulate and manage digital assets such as bitcoin.
The new version of the Virtual Assets Law also establishes regulation of cryptocurrencies and places them under the supervision of the Ukrainian National Securities Commission, a top government agency responsible for supervising participants in Ukrainian capital markets.
It is worth noting that the new bill does not consider Bitcoin as a legal currency as El Salvador does.
Ukraine has made it clear publicly that it has not followed the path of El Salvador, which previously legalized Bitcoin as an official currency in September last year.
Ukraine also told that the new law would provide reassurance to companies operating in the sector and pull them out of the gray area they were in earlier.
Fedorov explained:
Market participants will have legal protection and the opportunity to make decisions based on open consultations with government agencies.
Government officials expect that the new law will attract more foreign investment to Ukraine's growing cryptocurrency market.
Ukraine and the goal of becoming the center of cryptocurrency in the world:
In March 2020, the Ukrainian National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) identified cryptocurrencies as a type of intangible asset.
As a result, the agency expected Ukrainian citizens to declare their cryptocurrency holdings, similar to any other intangible assets.
Ukraine's guidance on digital currencies came on the heels of a similar clarification by Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), which considers cryptocurrencies as financial instruments.
In September last year, Ukraine instituted a paperless system, in which public authorities announced that they would no longer demand paper documents from Ukrainians.
The state's goal was to develop the state and make it more comfortable and convenient for the next fifty years.
The country started thinking about building a digital economy and became a beloved jurisdiction for crypto and blockchain companies.