Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenski has signed the Virtual Goods Act into law, which gives legal support to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in Ukraine. The information was released in an official statement by the Ministry and the Digital Transformation Committee of Ukraine on Wednesday 16 March.
Virtual Goods Act
The approval comes in the context of the deluge of donations in bitcoin, ether and other cryptocurrencies that the Ukrainian government is receiving to face the armed attack launched by Russia on its territory.
The virtual goods law was passed by Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, on February 17, just weeks before the Russians launched an invasion of the country. As reported for some time, the legal instrument was only awaiting Zelenski's signature before taking effect.
According to the statement, the law creates the legal conditions for the "launch of a legal market for virtual goods in Ukraine", which will be regulated by the National Securities Market Commission and the Central Bank of Ukraine.
In addition to giving legal status to the use and possession of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the law will provide conditions for classifying and regulating the market, as well as creating mechanisms to monitor the sector. The measures include the creation of a registry of cryptocurrency service providers.
"Currently, the Ministry of Finance is also actively working to amend Ukraine's tax and civil codes to fully launch the virtual goods market," the statement said.
Cryptocurrency donations already exceed $ 80 million
According to data from the Slowmist monitoring site, the donations received in cryptocurrency wallets related to Ukraine they amount to approximately $ 80,5 million at the current price. The record reflects donations in 11 different cryptocurrencies.
Most of the contributions are sent to the official portfolios of the Ukrainian government, where more than 50 million dollars are concentrated. The rest is distributed in other funds such as the Ukrainian NGO, Ukraine DAO, Aid for Ukraine, Unchain Found, and Ukrainian Cyber Police.
We looked at a report from Chainalysis last year that, in August, Ukraine was the country with the fourth highest adoption of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Ukrainians rank third in terms of peer-to-peer (P2P) trading volume in the report.
