Digital Currency in Modern Russia: Legal Essence and Place in Turnover

Abstract

The information society of our time is characterized by large-scale and intensive use of computer technologies in most areas of economic relations. Many procedures of interaction between people and business entities are computerized and digitized. Remote technologies used on the Internet allow groups of people, in particular, to perform mathematical calculations and use the data obtained in the interests of participants in such collective calculations. The totality of such electronic data in the Russian Federation is legitimized as a digital currency. The legal content and place of digital currency in property turnover and the system of its state regulation seems to be an actual object of research and development. The article solves the following tasks based on the study of domestic legislation and academic publications: the legal content of digital currency as encrypted information and the type of other property is substantiated; legislative constructions providing for the functioning of digital currency as a means of payment and investment are analyzed; qualitative features of digital currency inherent in the object of civil rights are identified. Digital currency is studied as a set of electronic data and information, the author’s definition of digital currency is presented. Digital currency in circulation is disclosed as encrypted information, settlement and exchange equivalent and investment asset. The fallacy of the legislative recognition of digital currency as a means of payment is argued. The legal constructions on the possibility of using digital currency as an investment are critically evaluated. The features of turnover and the development of regulatory regulation of digital currency in the Russian legal order are analyzed. A legal analysis of the parliamentary bill on the “mining” of digital currencies is being carried out. The essence is substantiated; the definition of activities aimed at obtaining digital currencies by mathematical calculations on private computers is formulated. Digital currency is considered as a kind of other property, the conclusion is made about the possibility of recognizing the “coin” of digital currency as an object of civil rights. The article examines the modern doctrinal developments of mainly Russian researchers on the subject of exploration, as well as encyclopedic and normative sources. Proposals are being made to improve the legal regulation of public relations in the field of property turnover of digital currency.