Mikhail Vidyakin, head of the strategy and reform department at the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), has said that overregulation is preventing the country’s cryptocurrency sector from developing.
Speaking to the crytocurrency news agency LetKnow, Mr Vidyakin said that there are too many institutions in the country that have the authority to regulate cryptocurrencies.
“Ukraine needs a clearer regulatory framework for cryptocurrency, along with better definitions for the industry,” he said. “I support regulations that allow the market to grow, and believe that the banks should be open to interacting with the FinTech sector.”
While Ukraine has proposed a number of reforms to the way the cryptocurrencies are regulated, none have yet been adopted by parliament. The latest proposal, put forward late last year, raises the possibility of fully legalising cryptocurrencies in two stages over the next three years, first by clearly defining the status of cryptocurrency exchanges – ideally in 2019 – and then by regulating cryptocurrency wallet providers and custodial platforms by 2021.
New research by USAID suggests that Ukrainians trade around 775 million US dollars-worth of cryptocurrency each year.
