Russia to Require Crypto Exchanges to Disclose Customer Data

A roundtable on blockchain technologies was recently held in the Federation Council of Russia, bringing together representatives from both government and business sectors. During the event, Olga Tisen, Head of the Legal Department at Rosfinmonitoring, made several important statements.

According to Tisen, blockchain and digital currencies are being used to commit a wide range of crimes worldwide. She noted that there are over 1,500 publicly available reports of criminal offenses in some way connected to cryptocurrencies. In these cases, digital assets most often serve as a means of payment or as the object of criminal activity.

Tisen pointed out that even when law enforcement agencies manage to seize crypto wallets, it is difficult to identify their owners. The only option is for investigators to directly request information from exchanges and crypto platforms. However, there is currently no established procedure for this, and platforms can either ignore the request or claim they do not have the necessary data.

In response to these challenges, Rosfinmonitoring has prepared a set of documents to regulate the activities of crypto exchanges in Russia. The proposal would require crypto exchanges to store all information about cryptocurrency owners for at least five years and provide this data to law enforcement or other government agencies upon request.

Tisen stated that these amendments have been in development since 2017, with the goal of “bringing transparency to the field of cryptocurrency operations.” She added, “All crypto exchanges will be required to register or obtain a license.”