Cryptocurrency should not be offered to unqualified investors, the integration of its purchase mechanism into the domestic financial system carries serious risks, said First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Vladimir Chistyukhin. Deputy head of the Ministry of Finance Alexei Moiseyev said that the Ministry also recognizes the risks associated with the circulation of cryptocurrency, proposes to limit its purchase for unqualified investors in the amount of 50 thousand rubles.

Another round of discussion between the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance on the future contour of regulation of cryptocurrencies in the Russian Federation took place during the conference “Kommersant” “Financial market-2022. New goals in new realities”.

“Cryptocurrencies are indeed a highly speculative and very risky product for which there is no collateral. As a matter of fact, it is not even a security – because there is no obligated party in the legal sense – so here, I think it is worth considering even tighter limits than those currently in place for non-qualified investors. Within the limits, I would suggest that the limit (for purchase – IF) be halved, to 50 thousand rubles,” Moiseyev said during the conference.

“Digital currency, we fully agree with the Central Bank in assessing all its characteristics and risks associated with its circulation, the only question is what to do with it further, what conclusions follow from it. This is the only disagreement we have with the Central Bank,” Moiseyev added.

He once again emphasized that cryptocurrency is a risky asset. “But it is there, it has become part of our lives, more than 10 million people, according to our estimates, have invested in it, we cannot ignore it and not react,” the deputy head of the Ministry of Finance said.

The host of the conference, representative of IMEMO RAN Vladimir Milovidov noted that, according to some estimates, the average size of a cryptocurrency wallet is 160 thousand rubles, and asked the Central Bank representative for his opinion on the proposed by the Ministry of Finance restrictions on the purchase of “nekvalami” of 50 thousand rubles.

“I believe that these restrictions are unreasonable, but not in the sense of Br50 thousand or Br160 thousand, but in the sense that in principle unqualified investors should have nothing to do with cryptocurrency on the territory of the Russian Federation,” said Chistyukhin.

The Central Bank representative emphasized that the process of buying cryptocurrency by legal entities and individuals on foreign exchanges is spreading, but has not captured all the professional participants and infrastructure. “By and large, some investors are separated from it, and we would like to see this status quo maintained,” he added. “The alternative to this is to open (cryptocurrency – IF) wallets here, but I repeat, it seems to us that from the point of view of financial stability risks, from the point of view of investor protection, this would be an extremely wrong decision,” Chistyukhin said.

Earlier, the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance presented an opposite vision of the development of this market. The Central Bank in its advisory report proposed to prohibit mining and the use of the infrastructure of the domestic financial market for transactions with cryptocurrency. In turn, the Ministry of Finance proposed to embed the segment of cryptocurrency transactions both in the banking sector and in the sphere of digital currency exchange operators with the introduction of an appropriate register of operators. The Russian government approved the concept of cryptocurrency market development based on the Ministry of Finance’s proposals on February 8.