Russian Crypto Consensus Collapses into Utter Chaos as Finance Ministry, Central Bank Present Rival Bills

cryptonews.com:

The rest of the world may be talking about the imminent threat of war between Russia and Ukraine, backed by Western allies, but in Moscow, the talk of the political town is...crypto.

As reported, a long-awaited consensus between the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank was believed to have been brokered earlier this year. This was supposed to have resulted in a piece of draft legislation unveiled today – and rushed before the State Duma (Russia’s parliament) in time for the spring session.

But cracks in the “consensus” began to appear earlier this week when the Central Bank began criticizing the draft bill. Now it appears that there way likely no consensus whatsoever, and that the bitter disagreement between the parties is still as strong as it ever was.

The Central Bank doggedly opposes all forms of crypto adoption, and wants to issue a China-style ban on mining, crypto ownership, and trading. The ministry, meanwhile, wants to regulate the industry with tough measures, but essentially legalize it and allow miners to keep operating provided they pay taxes on their earnings.

President Vladimir Putin had urged the parties to hurry up and settle their differences, but it seems they have done anything but. While the ministry has indeed gone public with the bill, the Central Bank has – remarkably – countered by issuing its own bill, yet again calling for a ban.

So at the same moment when the Finance Minister was briefing some members of the domestic press on the intricacies of his ministry’s bill, it appears that the Central Bank was leaking details of its own draft measure to other media outlets.

RBC stated that it had obtained a copy of the Central bank’s bill, whose authenticity was “confirmed by a source familiar with the