The head of the Financial Market Committee, Anatoly Aksakov, has submitted a bill to the State Duma that will ban the use of digital financial assets (DFA) and utilitarian digital rights as a means of payment on the territory of the Russian Federation.

According to the document, DFA is prohibited from accepting or transferring “as a consideration for goods transferred, work performed, services rendered, as well as any other form that allows payment for DFA for goods, works, services.”

The current regulation does not directly prohibit the use of digital assets as a means of payment.

The explanatory note to the document states that the only official currency in the Russian Federation is the ruble, and that the ban would eliminate the risks of using the CFA as a monetary proxy.

To enforce the proposed restrictions, CFA exchange operators will need to reject transactions where it is possible to use such assets as a means of payment.

Both information system operators and investment platform operators issuing DFAs must make it impossible for users to create and modify records for DFAs while dealing with DFAs.

The document directs operators of electronic platforms to the subjects of the national payment system, they must be included in the register of the Bank of Russia.

Recall that the CFA law was adopted in 2020 and entered into force on January 1, 2021. In May of this year, the State Duma supported a bill on the taxation of operations with the CFA at the first reading.

From the Central Bank, platforms Atomyze, Sberbank and Lighthouse received the license of the information system operator to manage the digital financial market.