Draft laws on the regulation of the crypto industry in their current form do not take into account the wishes of the community and can inflict losses on Ukraine losses, the founder and head of Remme startup, Oleksandr Momot, has said at a roundtable "Why does Ukraine need to use blockchain and legalise cryptocurrency?" hosted by Gorshenin Institute.
“We cannot say that all the wishes of the community have been taken into account because there are doubts that the changes will be adopted in a form that will really help the market. If this is passed in its current form, Ukraine, according to our estimates, will lose about 10bn hryvnyas. We appreciate it that the Binance crypto exchange will operate legally in Ukraine. But the state wants to regulate what it cannot regulate because it is difficult to work with blockchain transactions. The problem in the interaction of the state with blockchain is that the state does not realise the complexity of levying taxes on blockchain transactions. From the point of view of the state, the exchange of bitcoin and ethereums is a taxable operation. From our point of view, anything happening in blockchain should not be regulated because market operators will simply change the jurisdiction and one will not be able to collect any taxes," Momot said.
According to him, Ukraine should create a kind of "sandbox" which will empirically find the best solutions and develop a legislative framework that will take into account the wishes of the community.
"Our country does not have huge resources but it is possible to create the best conditions for the cryptocurrency industry, so that not only Binance, which makes up 1% of the market, but all exchanges use Ukraine as a gateway for exchanging fiat money to and from crypto. Due to the fact that there are no borders anymore and the world is global, people need free conversion. If Ukraine creates such conditions and people can work like that, it will be a bonus. However, in our case, the state is trying to regulate something that will negatively affect the Ukrainian market. The more we regulate, the more we interfere. We need some kind of a 'sandbox' with mild conditions and the absence of punishment for deviations from the current standards, and then, as necessary, we will pass everything we need to preserve Ukrainian business and attract other businesses here," he concluded.