- The digital ruble is partially a means to circumvent sanctions imposed on Russia
- The new law will allow the government to confiscate taxpayers' digital assets
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a digital ruble bill into law, with which it has become part of the nation’s tax code, local media source Telesputnik reported, cited by CoinDesk.
The tax code now contains a definition of a “digital ruble account” as well as regulations for the taxation of digital ruble transactions.
The history of the Russian CBDC
Russia has spent some time trying to launch the digital ruble, partially as a means to circumvent sanctions imposed on it for its actions against Ukraine. The president signed the digital ruble bill into law in July this year. The country’s central bank had been working on the digital ruble as a CBDC project since 2020.
The new law will allow the government to confiscate digital assets if a taxpayer does not have enough fiat in their bank accounts. It also lets officials suspend digital ruble account transactions and mandates digital asset platforms to provide documents showing funds have been written off from the taxpayer’s account.
The Central Bank stated earlier that companies and individuals should be able to use digital rubles in 2025 “at their own request."
Coping with limitations
In April 2023, Bankless Times reported that the Russian government was introducing a new “unrestricted” payment system where it planned to use digital currencies in cross-border payments. At the time, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov commented that no third country would be able to intervene and freeze settlement payments between two other countries.
Dark clouds for the ruble
The Russian ruble has plunged by more than 30% this year and is hovering at the lowest level since February last year. RUB crashed as domestic spending jumped because of the war in Ukraine and rising sanctions. Many Russian people and businesses have also been buying dollars, which is seen as a safe haven.
It is against this backdrop that Bitcoin price has been soaring against the ruble as well as the Argentine peso and the Nigerian naira.
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