According to Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the National Duma Financial Market Committee, the Duma is considering deferring the adoption of the DFA bill to the autumn meeting, while delegates have basically agreed to approve a financing bill.

Aksakov further explained that officials could not reach a consensus on the legal issues related to Russian digital currency. He said that DFA-related laws would determine whether we would prohibit encrypted currency as a medium of trade in Russian legislation. This means that there is no exchange outlet for encrypted currency and no encrypted exchange. We have not yet reached a consensus on this issue. We need to define encrypted currencies at the legislative level. Now we are at a fork in the road, either by banning the purchase and sale of encrypted currencies in Russia or by allowing them to do so.

According to press reports, President Putin asked the country to regulate the encryption industry by July 1, 2019. The meeting initially planned to pass the plan by the end of June. At that time, AIexei Moiseev, Deputy Minister of finance, revealed that the authorities had approved a separate law on initial currency issuance, which would become part of Russian law.

Previously, Russia had deferred encryption legislation at the request of the Financial Industry Task Force (CFATF), which required legislation on key industry terms such as encrypted currency and bitcoin.