The Ukranian Government Decides Not to Regulate the Cryptocurrency Mining Sector

While major countries across the globe are moving towards regulating the cryptocurrency space, Ukraine takes an alternative approach. The Ministry of Digital Transformation in Ukraine has recently indicated that it won’t be regulating the country’s cryptocurrency mining sector.

Last Friday, the Ministry published a document of cryptocurrency regulatory policy indicating Ukraine’s approach of dealing with digital assets. The document reads that the main goal of this government should be "formation and implementation of state policy in the field of digitization, digital economy, digital innovation, e-governance and e-democracy, development of information society; assuring the development of virtual assets, blockchain and tokenization, artificial intelligence”.

Additionally, the ministry said that it doesn’t find needful to bring new regulations to crypto mining as it is already self-governed by blockchain consensus rules. The manifesto states: "We remain loyal to mining activities that form part of open decentralized networks. Mining does not require regulatory activity from governmental oversight bodies or other third-party regulations, this activity is regulated by the protocol itself and network members”.

Furthermore, the ministry is also open to support new developments and introduction of distributed ledgers in the market. It added that it will create regulatory sandboxes to the blockchain industry and support "any innovation using these digital technologies, even if they are partially unregulated and/or not defined by national law”.

Last November 2019, the government of Ukraine submitted a draft bill for crypto taxation to the Ukranian parliament as the government to adopt the best practices while developing the framework for digital currency taxation.

The manifesto put forward by the ministry also states that Ukraine wants to facilitate a conducive environment for both - traditional finance and cryptocurrency markets - and prevent any type of misconduct from taking place.

But to further streamline the process, the head of the Ministry of Finance, Oksana Makarova, said that the nation’s top financial regulator will track all transactions above $1200. These measures will ensure that Ukraine’s anti-money laundering practices are in line with the latest recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force.