Russian laws on new areas: entertaining facts, or why a dead end cries



    Surely everyone has their favorite articles on Habré: those that can be found not even in the favorites, but easier - from memory. One of these I personally have is this one: the closure of LibertyReserve .

    First of all, because I remember about it, especially lately, all the time when they say to me about the ban on cryptocurrencies, ICOs, blockchain projects, VPNs, TORs, etc. Judge for yourself:

    1. In May 2013, the largest (!) Centralized (!!) payment system was closed: in Forbes, the article “After Bitcoin closes LibertyReserve, follow Bitcoin?” Immediately appears.
    2. In April 2013 - March 2014, the largest crypto exchange at that time began its operations that were unclean in meaning and purpose and closed: on April 15, 2014, the exchange closed. In addition, at that time there were quite a few hacks related to btc projects. And it would seem that the discrediting of p2p systems has reached its climax ...
    3. But let's look at the chart below:



    Now that pump seems insignificant, but at that time it was just a huge breakthrough.

    What is it for?

    Moreover, the state, it doesn’t matter in the USA or Russia, China or Bangladesh, is always mistaken when it considers that direct prohibitions can solve any problem: like cutting a Gordian knot.

    At least that's what I see in recent years in the Russian Federation:

    1. The law banning TOR and other p2p networks is absurd, which ultimately leads to at least two directions: the development of even more complex symbioses of the Dark Side than terminals + anonymous SIM cards + speed on the one hand; on the other hand, the creation of not already decentralized, but distributed deep Internet systems, say, through the same blockchain projects. Therefore, you need to learn to manage: otherwise the control zone will become unattainable.
    2. Huge layers of the economy after government intervention, or, which is the same thing, monopolies, in them leads to stagnation, and more often to a decline in all the main indicators: in my binder I can find about e-money, e-commerce, I think that soon it will be commodity aggregators . In addition, you should not forget the small business as a whole: in the summer of 2017, supposedly there were more small businesses. But only in numbers: in fact, it was an optimization of the big ones , and in 2017 the law on online cash desks enters the second stage and the norms contained in it will greatly affect those who are used to working on a simplified system (UTII, patents) .
    3. Finally, but not least, very often the state apparatus is so unable to understand the phenomenon that it does everything so as not to notice such a phenomenon or immediately taboo. In both cases it turns out badly. Consider a specific example.

    A brief excursion looks like this (more details can be found here ):

    • in 2014, the Central Bank said in an infographic that "surrogates are prohibited", which means what surrogates are, etc. - no one understood, and could not understand: there was no terminology and norms with sanctions;
    • in 2015, the Ministry of Finance decided to plant everyone: first they decided that they were up to 4 years old, then - up to 7 (closer to 2016);
    • in 2016, the famous thesis appears: “we are for the blockchain, but against cryptocurrency”;
    • in 2017, we suddenly decided to “lead the cryptorevolution”;
    • in 2017, new information from the Central Bank, confirming the theses of 2014;
    • in 2017, the State Duma of the Russian Federation requests a draft law on the crypto sphere.

    And all against the backdrop of a number of expert groups: the one headed by E. Sidorenko, the expert council at the State Duma of the Russian Federation , etc. That is, the following was done in three years: everything and everything was accused, first of all, with the speech of the Head of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation , but nothing was done. Nothing at all. In addition to claims that something has been done.



    Moreover, our budget, as you know, has a huge gap, called "underfunding." A reasonable question arises: “where is the logic?”. Judge for yourself: the ICO market is now close to $ 2,000,000,000 - and this is just the beginning, because injections of some worthy sums have begun recently. If the Russian Federation made an adequate tax regime, declared protection to investors and, most importantly, to the founders, would have refused an incomprehensible position on ICO, then not all, but at least Russian projects with the initial placement of tokens could leave good working capital in the low-liquid budget of the country. To make the numbers more tangible, let's open a summary table by region of the Russian Federation . Or look at the chart below.



    But besides this, there are other, monetized, directions:

    • Mining . Dividing it into professional and “home” (let's say, by capacity) and that’s all - there will be a complete analogy with hosting, when for my personal I owe nothing to anyone, but for the prom. scales - even very, also special permissions are a plus.
    • Labor market . Programmers, testers, lawyers, economists and accountants, designers, layout designers ... And many more people of different specialties are involved in the blockchain industry. Why take such a large and promising market from the state budget?
    • Investors and founders from abroad : of course, here-and-now no one will rush into the Russian economy. Afraid. But since such controversial projects as ZrCoin, Kolionovo, SandCoin and a number of others have attracted attention, why not make a bet on this as well? Living money, even in a virtual environment, is always an opportunity to put money into circulation.

    I can continue, but the fact is that today we ourselves are depriving ourselves of liquidity, additional deposits, new jobs and, most importantly, development prospects: the crypto market is at its peak now - less than $ 200,000,000,000. And this is for some one and a half years of intensive development. Further - trillions are waiting for us, because Institutional investors will come in, say, from Japan.

    Everyone is afraid of the consequences of VPN / TOR, the development of Internet aggregators, the ICO bubble ... But the problem is that all this will develop anyway: simply with ours or without our participation.

    Say, what's the use of fear of another overheated market? Isn’t it easier to introduce finally free financial and, if you like, blockchain literacy courses throughout the country? Those who try to teach will immediately fall away, without understanding what, the main thing that teaches. Secondly, an intelligent person will never just “get into” high-risk projects without elementary hedging.

    Recently, for example, I came across several taxi drivers who boldly and eagerly talked about Bitcoin: that all this without state support is a pyramid and nothing more. It seems to be nothing special. The only problem is that all their messages ended in a tirade on how to earn more and faster, but in a way that is not dangerous. In my opinion, these “weak hands” are just what the market never needs. Speculators need to be manipulated.

    Therefore, my resume on innovations in the format “Law of Spring”, the law on the ban ... (what - choose yourself) is simple:

    • A prohibitive policy has already led Russia to where we are - to the camp of constantly catching up countries in the field of IT. If we do not learn how to apply point regulation without always violating the principles laid down in the Constitution, Codes, etc., we will never be able to make the necessary leap forward.
    • Only free and universal education can solve the problems of the correct use of this or that technology: no restrictions and artificial interventions will do this better. The principles of personal hygiene in my opinion are a great example.
    • Finally, the hasty adoption of laws has led to the fact that at the moment when the State Duma of the Russian Federation, the Federation Council of the Russian Federation and other structures are faced with innovations, they cannot form an adequate understanding for regulating these phenomena, which in turn leads to a stagnation of the legal framework with one on the other hand, and on the other, its constant alteration, which does not ensure the stability of financial and economic relations, but, on the contrary, devalues ​​it as one of the foundations of business.

    Of course, this is not all that I would like to say, but all that I would like to convey in connection with the recent statements by the President, the Head of the Central Bank, the Ministry of Finance and a number of other state structures.

    PS It's funny that at the time of writing this article, the position of I. Shuvalov appeared :

    We ourselves do not know whether it is harmful or not, but we are already striving to ban and close it. If our place is among the advanced countries, and we want to succeed in this competitive race, and even create better living standards than our partners, whom we look at, their social economic standards, we need to be a little bolder

    The question, probably, is that there is simply no one to be bolder?

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