The 17th issue of our legal round-up (February, 2022).

We continue with a series of round-ups prepared by Mercuryo Legal Counsel Adam Berker to keep you updated on crypto regulations.

Ontario Court Ordered to Freeze Protestants’ Crypto Funds

Ontario Superior Court issued an order to freeze millions of dollars due to the Freedom Convoy mass protests of truckers in the country. The order was addressed, among other things, to a non-custodial crypto wallet Nunchuk and required to disclose and freeze the account of people involved in the protests.

Nevertheless, representatives of Nunchuk responded that the company neither collects personal data of their customers nor has access to private keys of their wallets.

Russian Ministry of Finance Aims to Clear Status of Crypto

Russian Ministry of Finance has forwarded a bill regulating Virtual Currencies to the Government.

The main aspects of the future regulation include:

The use of virtual currencies as a means of payment in Russia will be prohibited.
Transactions with cryptocurrencies on exchanges and exchangers will be legalized.
Crypto exchanges and exchangers will be strictly regulated.
Foreign exchanges must register in the Russian Federation and obtain a license.
Exchanges will be required to inform customers about the risks.
Users will have to pass testing if they want to invest 600,000 rubles a year, and if testing fails, the maximum allowable amount of investments will be 50,000 rubles.

The bill is still a tiny step towards a fully-fledged crypto regulation system in Russia, but at least things have started to move forward.

Crypto Miners in Georgia Might Be Exempted From Taxes

The state of Georgia introduced a bill that exempts crypto miners from sales and use tax. If approved, the new initiative will probably apply to commercial miners that operate in facilities of at least 7,000 square meters.

The bill may attract mining farms that relocated from China due to regulatory crackdown. In this case, Georgia may become another US mining centre along with Texas and Washington.

Wyoming Proposes State-Issued Stablecoin

On February 17, four members of the Wyoming Legislature introduced the Wyoming Stable Token Act proposing issuing a USD pegged stablecoin by the State Treasurer.

The bill suggests opening a Wyoming stable token account. All funds deposited to the account from any source are intended to be inviolate, constituting a permanent or perpetual trust fund held on behalf of token holders.

UAE Plans to Regulate Crypto

The first step in UAE crypto regulation will be to license virtual currency service providers. Regulators plan to use Financial Action Task Force’s guidelines and other countries’ policies to frame their regulations. Furthermore, the authorities intend to prepare separate legislation for crypto miners in future.

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