Russian authorities are
reportedly planning to abandon efforts to institute criminal penalties for
bitcoin users.
The news comes from a
report issued today by Russian news agency Interfax in
which it asserts that representatives from the country's Ministry of
Finance, central bank and other government bureaus are increasingly
supportive of this action.
According to the report, representatives from
these groups are planning to submit a report to Russian President Vladimir
Putin containing this recommendation sometime in 2016.
If true, the report would end nearly two years
of speculation that Russia would seek to actively discourage the use of
cryptocurrencies and other "money surrogates" through administrative
fines and labor penalties.
As outlined in 2014 and
2015, "legal entities" that introduced their own digital currencies
would have faced fines of up to $25,000, while those who
distributed the digital assets could have beenpunishable by correctional labor.
