russian

Direct Democracy Party to Solve Issues With Crypto Rights in Russia

16/01/2020 by Idelto Editor

Direct Democracy Party to Solve Pending Issues With Crypto Rights in Russia

A new political force is being born in Russia out of the country’s tech business circles. The idea has been conceived by representatives of the country’s growing digital economy sector who want to embark on finding solutions to numerous issues that concern the crypto space.

Also read: Eastern Europe Sees More Fiat Options for Trading Crypto

World of Tanks Developer Leads Russian IT Party

The political project was announced by members of the IT industry led by Vyacheslav Makarov, former product manager at Wargaming who was involved in the development of the popular online action game World of Tanks, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported. Markov is the chief ideologist of the group which is working to establish the Direct Democracy Party (abbreviated PPD). The team has already filed for registration with the Russian Ministry of Justice in November. The party building process will culminate in a constituent congress to be held on March 5. PPD plans to take part in Russia’s 2020 regional elections, focusing on constituencies where large IT companies are operating.

Vyacheslav Makarov hopes to attract more developers from these organizations to the project. He points out that in many Russian regions IT companies are the biggest taxpayers and are well acquainted with local problems. His initiative has already won active support from other well-known figures such as Boris Chigidin, deputy head of the legal department at Yandex Money, Unwired Devices Director Oleg Artamonov, and the Director of the Eurasian Communication Center Alexei Pilko, who are members of the party’s organizational committee.

What sets PPD apart from other political projects is that it doesn’t have a favorite political ideology, notes the Russian election information portal Vybor Naroda. The party manifesto offers a “complete overhaul” of the existing political system that corresponds to the popular demand for real democracy. The party turns attention to the high level of property inequality in Russia, which is a leftist political message, but also to the systemic barriers to business and overregulation of all spheres of society, which is more characteristic for right-wing liberal factions.

PPD to Address Rights Pertaining to Cryptocurrencies

The authors of the manifesto have outlined certain groups of specific problems they feel it’s rational to address. One of them covers ownership rights regarding products of the digital economy including those pertaining to cryptocurrencies and blockchain systems. Another set of issues concerns matters related to the anonymity as well as the safety of participants and consumers in the digital economy sphere.

Despite these hints about their intentions, the founders of Direct Democracy Party are not putting forward a predetermined agenda. Instead, they plan to develop a mobile app based on blockchain technology that would allow members to have their say in the party policies. In order to take part in the regional elections this year, the new Russian party must be granted federal registration and establish permanent presence in at least 43 regions. While this may or may not happen within the next three months, the ultimate goal remains to gain seats in the State Duma in the parliamentary elections next year.

PPD can win voters’ attention on several fronts, one of which is the introduction of electronic voting, something authorities did not accomplish in 2019. Crypto regulation is another area. The final voting on a key piece of legislation designed to regulate cryptocurrencies has been postponed multiple times since the spring of 2018 when Russians voted for president. There was plenty of talk about adopting the regulations before that election too. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev recently spoke about the need to finally do that, while this week the Chairman of the Financial Market Committee, Anatoly Aksakov, was “99.9%” positive the Law on Digital Financial Assets will be adopted during the spring session of the Duma.

Parties with similar ideas have previously emerged in other countries as well. Sweden’s Pirate Party supports the right to individual privacy and freedom of speech on the internet and calls for greater government transparency and reform of intellectual property laws. The Ukrainian “Democratic Horde” party vowed last year to never accept money from oligarchs, rely solely on crypto donations and work to weaken state control over the economy while expanding civil liberties. The party wants to protect the interests of companies and people employed in the IT sector. And the Uruguay Digital Party recently announced an initiative to implement blockchain technology in its internal voting and governance. Its members believe Uruguayans should be able to audit their political representatives and take advantage of technology to expand citizen influence.

Do you think political organizations like Russia’s Direct Democracy Party can bring positive change to the treatment of cryptocurrencies? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Did you know you can buy and sell BCH privately using our noncustodial, peer-to-peer Local Bitcoin Cash trading platform? The local.Bitcoin.com marketplace has thousands of participants from all around the world trading BCH right now. And if you need a bitcoin wallet to securely store your coins, you can download one from us here.

The post Direct Democracy Party to Solve Issues With Crypto Rights in Russia appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Russian Opposition Leader Navalny Raises $700,000 in Crypto Donations

19/12/2019 by Idelto Editor

Alexei Navalny, Russia’s leading critic of the current Kremlin administration, has attracted a serious amount of cryptocurrency in the form of anonymous donations for his corruption-combatting NGO. The digital coins collected since the beginning of this year have amounted to well over $700,000 at current prices.

Also read: Russian Tax Authority Registers Crypto as Part of a Company’s Capital

Anti-Corruption Foundation Collects 110 BTC in 2019

Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (abbr. FBK in Russian), which investigates alleged cases of high-profile corruption in Russia, has received 109.6 BTC between Jan. 1 and Dec. 1, 2019, the Russian edition of RT reported this week. At the time of writing, that’s close to 49 million rubles or around $780,000. The bulk of the donations have been made between April and September, during the run-up to the Moscow city council election.

The TV channel tracks all transactions to the wallet used by FBK since 2017. The BTC address 3QzYvaRFY6bakFBW4YBRrzmwzTnfZcaA6E, which belongs to Navalny’s campaign manager Leonid Volkov, was initially published on the “Navalny 20!8” website after his bid for last year’s presidential election was announced in 2016. It was meant to be used until the candidate’s team registered an official fundraising account but supporters have continued to send crypto funds to this day.

A quick check using the Bitcoin.com block explorer shows that over 638 BTC (approximately $4.5 million today) has been deposited so far and that most of the money has been withdrawn already. The current balance stands at around 0.05 BTC after a total of 2,770 transactions. According to RT, 262.4 BTC were sent to the wallet in 2017 and another 242.2 BTC were deposited during the following year.

March, April, June, and September have been the months with the most transactions this year. In April 2019, when the campaign for the Moscow election started, the wallet received 31.7 BTC which is more than the funds raised during each of the previous months. 12.6 BTC were transferred to the same address in September with most of the money, 10.45 BTC, sent in a single transaction days after the vote for the city’s parliament. The amount was transferred from the 3DdBZ734DjaqBf29PvjxWv9mvU6VaQEs8H address which, according to the publication, is FBK’s biggest crypto sponsor, with 12 donations worth over 25.6 BTC in April alone.

FBK Registered as a ‘Foreign Agent’

Transactions to and from the FBK cryptocurrency wallet have decreased significantly since the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case against people involved in the Anti-Corruption Foundation in early August. Only 1.47 ВТС were deposited by the end of that month. Donations dropped to a total of 0.54 BTC in October before bouncing back to 4.81 BTC in November.

The probe was launched into an alleged “legalizing” of illicit funds by Navalny’s NGO during opposition protests in Moscow this past summer. Russian investigators suspect members of the foundation and individuals associated with its activities of laundering 1 billion rubles (over $15 million) over the course of the past three years.

During the antigovernment demonstrations, the organizers of which are close to Navalny, the opposition leader himself was serving a 30-day prison term for inciting what authorities consider to be illegal protests against the banning of certain opposition candidates from running in the Russian capital’s elections. Hundreds of participants in the “unsanctioned” gatherings and walks through the city center were detained.

Then, in October, the Russian Justice Ministry added FBK to a list of “foreign agents.” According to the ministry, Navalny’s foundation meets the criteria of that definition while the organization maintains it’s not receiving any funding from abroad. More than 70 entities have so far been listed as foreign agents since the adoption of a special law governing their activities in 2012.

According to the legislation, a foreign agent can be either a private individual or an organization that’s involved in Russian politics but receives funds from foreign entities. Those that have been labeled as such by the Russian state are required to submit regular financial declarations, report their activities and are subject to annual audits.

Accounting for income or donations received in cryptocurrency is difficult in Russia where digital coins don’t have a legal status yet. A package of laws and amendments was introduced in the State Duma last year but the final adoption of the main bill, the law “On digital financial assets,” has been postponed multiple times due to various reasons including disagreements between the Central Bank of Russia and the Ministry of Finance over the status of decentralized cryptocurrencies.

What’s your opinion about political figures and parties using crypto wallets to receive campaign donations? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Do you need to track down a Bitcoin transaction? With our Bitcoin Explorer tool, you can search by transaction ID, address, or block hash to find specific details, and for a look at the broader crypto space explore our Bitcoin Charts tool.

The post Russian Opposition Leader Navalny Raises $700,000 in Crypto Donations appeared first on Bitcoin News.

VPN Providers Defy Order to Connect to Russia’s Internet Censor

16/06/2019 by Idelto Editor

VPN Providers Defy Order to Connect to Russia’s Internet Sensor

Russian regulators have once again moved to expand oversight of the online space in an attempt to ensure compliance with various restrictions Moscow is trying to impose. But as in other cases, their efforts have been met with resistance. Over a dozen VPN platforms, popular among crypto enthusiasts and other privacy-conscious users, have refused to join the state-run system for blocking banned websites. Some of them have already announced they are moving abroad. The game of cat and mouse continues, with Roskomnadzor vowing to block nine of the refusers within a month.

Also read: Russian Prosecutors Fail to Block Crypto Website

VPN Services Move Out of Country

In March this year, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media, Roskomnadzor, demanded from 10 VPN service providers to connect to the Federal State Information System (FSIS). The register keeps information about websites, the access to which has been restricted after they were blacklisted by Russian authorities. Roskomnadzor wants to confirm the VPN services do not allow their subscribers to access these sites.

The telecom watchdog sent out notices to Tor Guard, Vypr VPN, Open VPN, Nord VPN, VPN Unlimited, IP Vanish, Hide My Ass!, Hola VPN, Express VPN, and Kaspersky Secure Connection. Seven companies have refused to collaborate, including four that have moved their servers out of the country, and another two have not responded at all. Six more platforms, which have not been notified by the agency, also indicated they won’t connect to the FSIS. So far, only Kaspersky has agreed to cooperate.

VPN Providers Defy Order to Connect to Russia’s Internet Censor — Roskomnadzor

Alexander Zharov, head of Roskomnadzor, stated last week that nine VPN platforms which have not fulfilled the watchdog’s requirements, may be blocked within a month for not complying with the law that prohibits the provision of services facilitating the bypassing of government restrictions. “It seems Roskomnadzor has recently compiled a second list of VPNs and asked them to filter traffic,” Sarkis Darbinyan, lead legal expert at Roskomsvoboda, a Russian NGO fighting internet censorship, told news.Bitcoin.com.

Darbinyan also shared that another provider, Avast Secureline VPN, has just announced it’s withdrawing from the country in connection with Roskomnadzor’s actions. The company believes compliance with such requirements would violate its own principles and the right to freedom of the Internet. And because it won’t be in a position to bring any benefit to its Russian users, Avast informed them they will not be able to renew their subscriptions in the future.

The Battle for the Runet

A database maintained by Roskomsvoboda contains over 173,000 websites, forums, messengers, news outlets and other online platforms that have been banned at some point. The restrictions have been mandated by various state institutions including several government agencies, ministries and the Prosecutor’s Office. Many of them are still offline but some, like the crypto exchange aggregator Bestchange.ru, have been taken out of the blacklist.

Another encouraging example comes from the case with the blocking of a VPN service provider called Hidemy.name. The platform was taken offline by a ruling of a regional court in the Russian Mari El Republic in 2017. The owner of the website sought help from Roskomsvoboda and in May of this year, the organization’s legal team managed to successfully challenge the court’s decision.

Sarkis Darbinyan noted that Russian judicial authorities did not dig deep enough into how VPN technologies work and the lawyers were able to identify many procedural violations. This led to the cancellation of the original ruling and the unblocking of Hidemy.name by Roskomnadzor. However, “this battle is not over yet, so we will continue to fight for the rights of Russian users to VPNs and to protect companies that provide such secure and safe services,” Darbinyan commented.

According to amendments made to the Federal Law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection” in late 2017, VPN providers and anonymizers are expected to register with Roskomnadzor and connect to the FSIS within 30 working days. One of their key obligations is to limit access to internet resources that are banned in the Russian Federation.

The same applies to search engines and the Russian internet companies Yandex, Sputnik, Mail.ru, and Rambler have already complied. Earlier this year, Google was sanctioned for failing to meet this requirement. Roskomnadzor now claims the internet giant has already paid the 500,000 ruble (approximately $8,000) fine imposed by a Russian court and is now filtering searches in accordance with the FSIS rules.

Roskomnadzor’s Next Move

If Russian regulators find that the law has been breached, they may adopt a decision to restrict access to the VPN providers who have violated its provisions. Roskomnadzor is now expected to take measures aimed at blocking the VPN services which have refused to comply with its requirements as well as those that have not replied to its notices. It remains unclear, however, what the watchdog’s next step will be.

Various approaches have been employed in the past regarding other non-compliant companies. For example, it took the watchdog almost a year to act against Telegram, the messenger founded by the Russian-born entrepreneur Pavel Durov, which enjoys great popularity in the crypto community. Other messaging platforms such as Blackberry, Imo and Line were banned much faster.

“It does not look like Roskomnadzor and Russian ISPs [Internet service providers] are really technically ready to block VPNs. For sure, they can block websites where users can download apps. That’s the easiest thing to do. But they absolutely cannot make Apple and Google remove a mobile app. Of course, the most difficult thing for them would be to actually block an application and break connectivity with the servers of these operators. And they understand it,” said Darbinyan. The activist added that this will become a huge problem for Russian regulators after the epic failure to block Telegram.

Government agencies are now trying to improve their blocking capabilities. “The Main Radio Frequency Center, an entity subordinated to Roskomnadzor, requested in March the development of an automated blocking system. It should be available by December 2019. The system will monitor how search engines, VPN services, proxy servers and anonymizers comply with the requirements of Federal Law № 276-ФЗ [the one that affects VPNs]. Maybe after supplying learning DPI [Deep Packet Inspection] tools to all ISPs to recognize VPN traffic by patterns, they will be more effective,” Roskomsvoboda’s representative pointed out. “It looks like it is going to be a long game of cat and mouse,” Sarkis Darbinyan said and elaborated:

Let me remind that most of the VPN services that have received notifications from Roskomnadzor already have a fairly rich experience in working in China and bypassing the Great Firewall. So they can easily adapt to work in Russia in these new circumstances.

The implementation of advanced technical means to control the Russian online space is part of package of measures introduced with the new “Digital Economy National Program” legislation, also known as the Runet law. It was adopted in April by the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, and according to its sponsors, its goal is to protect the Russian segment of the Internet from external threats turning it into a “sovereign” space. Critics say it will not only limit internet freedom but also affect negatively many businesses that rely on the World Wide Web, including crypto platforms.

As news.Bitcoin.com reported, some of the law’s key provisions include the building of a system that will channel Russian internet traffic through government-controlled routing points as well as granting unlimited powers to Roskomnadzor – the agency will be able to cut off non-complying internet providers at will. It’s been estimated that the system will draw more than 30 billion rubles (almost $500 million) from the state budget, an amount that has raised some eyebrows. But, financial costs and security concerns aside, the question many Russians are asking themselves is if the Runet will after all remain ‘Internet’.

Are you using a VPN service? What’s your opinion about Moscow’s requirements toward VPN providers? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Express yourself freely at Bitcoin.com’s user forums. We don’t censor on political grounds. Check forum.Bitcoin.com.

The post VPN Providers Defy Order to Connect to Russia’s Internet Censor appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Russian Prosecutors Fail to Block Crypto Website

13/05/2019 by Idelto Editor

Russian Prosecutors Fail Blocking Crypto Website

A court case in Russia has signaled a change in the attitude authorities have towards the cryptocurrency space, at least on first glance. An online portal helping traders find the best exchange options for their digital assets will be allowed to restore normal operations. That’s after prosecutors gave up their efforts to block the website citing upcoming Russian legislation meant to regulate Bitcoin.

Also read: Russia Prepares to Test Cryptocurrencies in Four of Its Regions

Request to Block Bestchange.ru Dropped

Roskomnadzor, Russia’s telecom watchdog, is now obliged to take Bestchange.ru out of its banned websites list. That’s after a Court of Appeals accepted the decision of the Prosecutor’s Office in Omsk to retract its administrative request to take down the platform. The statement issued by the office refers to new provisions in Russian law, arguably aimed at legalizing cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, as explained in the document. According to a copy of it posted on social media, prosecutors have mentioned two bills, part of a legislative package designed to put the crypto sector in order.

Russian Prosecutors Fail to Block Crypto Website — Roskomnadzor

The first draft is amending the country’s Civil Code to include crypto-related terms such as “digital rights” and “smart contracts.” On March 12 this year, the amendments were adopted on third reading in the Duma, the lower house of parliament, but will not enter into force until October.

The second bill that has been referred to by the prosecutors is the law “On Digital Financial Assets.” It was introduced in May 2018, then edited and postponed multiple times with its adoption finally scheduled for the 2019 spring parliamentary session. Basic terms such as “cryptocurrency” and “mining” have been added to the texts and deleted more than once.

Bestchange.ru has been blacklisted several times since 2017, when the Oktyabrsky District Court in St. Petersburg decided it should be blocked along with close to 40 other crypto-related websites. However, neither of these attempts has been particularly successful and the platform is still online. According to its PR and Marketing Manager Nikita Zuborev, quoted by RBC, Bestchange has employed various technical means to circumvent the blockade and many of its users have not even noticed any interruptions.

The last ban was imposed on March 12, 2019 and followed a decision by the Kuibishevsky Regional Court in Omsk from July 24, 2018 which determined that Bitcoin represents a money surrogate and the dissemination of information about it is illegal in the Russian Federation. The retracted claim now means Bestchange.ru should be able to operate legally.

The case will be returned to the first instance court and reviewed again as the original lawsuit concerns public interest and involves three other blacklisted platforms – Fastobmen.net, Pushpayer.com and Xchange.cash. Nevertheless, Roskomnadzor has to lift the ban after it receives the court of appeals’ decision and before the start of the new proceedings.

It’s Not About New Laws, Website’s Lawyer Explains

To better understand the implications of the case for the crypto industry and find out what’s beneath the surface, news.Bitcoin.com contacted Sarkis Darbinyan, a member of the non-governmental organization Digital Rights Center (DRC) which is fighting internet censorship in Russia. Darbinyan is representing the interests of the Bestchange.ru operator in court. He thinks the upcoming crypto legislation is not the main reason why the claim has been dropped. The lawyer says this is merely an excuse used by the Prosecutor’s Office of Omsk to cover the weak case they brought to court.

“It’s not about changing the law. At the present moment, there are several government orders to develop this new legislation. The bills are still under discussions and we are looking forward to having good regulations. But no special laws regulating the cryptocurrency market have been adopted to date,” Darbinyan noted.

Three different courts – in St. Petersburg, Omsk and Anapa – have so far looked into lawsuits filed against Bestchange.ru. “Last year we managed to break the practice of blocking cryptocurrency sites. We have submitted documents to the Omsk Regional Court and the Prosecutor’s Office showing that we had previously reversed a similar decision by the court in St. Petersburg and the prosecutors’ position has changed,” he explained.

According to the activist, representatives of the Prosecutor’s Office in Omsk have in fact copied the position of their colleagues from St. Petersburg and referred to President Putin’s order to adopt a bill regulating digital assets just to add a weighty argument in favor of abandoning their own claim. That was done to avoid a scenario in which the court dismisses the prosecutors’ request – such development would have been interpreted as a defeat for them and would have entailed certain consequences.

Sarkis Darbinyan expects that after the lawsuit is returned to the Kuibishevsky Regional Court in Omsk, the judges will try to put forward more formal reasons to drop the case. “Now we are waiting for the court’s ruling to send it to Roskomnadzor as soon as possible in order to remove the site from the blacklist,” the lawyer added. After that, Bestchange.ru’s defense plans to file its own lawsuit for damages caused by the unreasonable claim of the Prosecutor’s Office.

What do you make of the Bestchange.ru case? Do you think crypto platforms need dedicated legislation to operate legally? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock Sarkis Darbinyan (Twitter).

Express yourself freely at Bitcoin.com’s user forums. We don’t censor on political grounds. Check forum.Bitcoin.com.

The post Russian Prosecutors Fail to Block Crypto Website appeared first on Bitcoin News.

US Sanctions Moscow’s Evrofinance Bank Over Involvement With Petro

14/03/2019 by Idelto Editor

US Sanctions Moscow-Based Bank Evrofinance Over Involvement With Petro

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed sanctions on Moscow-based Evrofinance Mosnarbank. The Russian bank was allegedly involved in Venezuela’s attempts to bypass financial sanctions using the petro.

Also Read: In the Daily: Exchange to List STOs, Crypto Tax Tool for Accountants, Coinbase Updates

US Sanctions Evrofinance

The American administration has explained it targeted Evrofinance because it enabled corruption, embezzlement, and money laundering by the disputed Venezuelan government of “Maduro and his cronies.” As a result, all the property of the bank and any entities that it owns 50 percent or more of that are in the U.S. or under its control are blocked and must be reported to OFAC. The sanctions also prohibits anyone within U.S. jurisdiction to have any dealings with the bank.

“The illegitimate Maduro regime has profited off of the suffering of the Venezuelan people,” stated Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. “This action demonstrates that the United States will take action against foreign financial institutions that sustain the illegitimate Maduro regime and contribute to the economic collapse and humanitarian crisis plaguing the people of Venezuela.”

Serving as a Lifeline for Maduro

What drew the ire of the American administration is that when the Venezuelan government launched the petro, Evrofinance served as the primary international institution willing to finance the venture. The U.S. found that early investors in the petro were invited to buy the cryptocurrency by wiring funds to a Venezuelan government account at Evrofinance. American officials has interpreted the petro as a demonstration of Maduro’s intent to circumvent U.S. financial sanctions.

According to the U.S. Treasury, Evrofinance was founded as a bi-national bank to fund joint Russia-Venezuela oil and infrastructure projects. Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, bought a 49 percent stake in the bank in 2011 through the Venezuelan National Development Fund. Gazprombank, in which the Russian gas producer Gazprom is a shareholder, and VTB Bank, Russia’s second largest bank, each owned a 25 percent stake in Evrofinance at the time of its incorporation. Both Gazprombank and VTB Bank were placed under OFAC sanctions in 2014.

What do you think about US sanctions against Evrofinance? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Satoshi’s Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com.

The post US Sanctions Moscow’s Evrofinance Bank Over Involvement With Petro appeared first on Bitcoin News.