Key Takeaways
- Armenia’s central bank has been strongly encouraged to clean up the crypto ecosystem in the country.
- To help deter the illegal use of cryptocurrencies, government officials and financial industry executive officers acknowledge that the industry needs to be regulated.
- An SRC(the State Revenue Committee) official put forward the idea during parliamentary proceedings focused on the implementation of last year’s state budget.
The State Revenue Committee (SRC), Armenia’s official governing body in charge of tax and custom-made solutions, has changed its name to the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA), recommending the financial authority to ensure the country’s crypto market is under regulation. Rustam Badasyan, the company’s president, stated in the Armenian parliament:
“We allow unethical deals to take place if we don’t control this area, and there have been instances of both tax evasion and cash laundering using cryptocurrencies.”
According to the banking and financial media outlet Armbanks.am, the SRC official released the statement during parliamentary proceedings dedicated solely to the implementation and operation of last year’s state budget. The committee works in close collaboration with the CBA and is in charge of the small South Caucasus country’s Customs and Tax Services.
Authorities, according to Badasyan, are no longer able to intervene in activities involving digital assets. He referenced a case in which a large sum of fiat currency was exchanged for cryptocurrency, and an investigation garnered no results due to the lack of a legislative structure in this area.
His remarks follow those of Seyran Sargsyan, the Executive Director of the Armenian Union of Banks, who stated that issues regarding the identification of cryptocurrency users and the transparency of crypto transactions must be discussed. Financial institutions in Armenia do not work with digital coins and do not provide support functions, as per the banker.
According to a record kept by the crypto information outlet Forklog, Armenia and the other members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) failed to agree on a common strategy for the promotion of policies for the crypto economic conditions in their respective territories in March 2021.
Armenia’s attempts to call for crypto regulatory oversight come as Russia’s regulatory framework is being delayed by active discussions on the subject.
According to Anatoly Aksakov, the head of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, the third reform bill on the regulation of the cryptocurrency industry is already under evaluation and has been fiercely debated.
“I don’t believe the document will be debated in the State Duma anytime soon.” The situation in the cryptocurrency market is also not encouraging: “Bitcoin has plummeted in value as a result of the sanctions decisions,” the deputy pointed out.
