The sale of cryptocurrency in Russia until recently was not regulated by any regulations and laws. Only relatively recently, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation decided to pay attention to this area, while the trading of bitcoins and other virtual money was conducted earlier, and continues today. What will change in this area and how to exchange cryptocurrency for real money and goods, we will tell in this article.
Cryptocurrency Trading Rules
On March 20 this year, a bill on the sale of cryptocurrency was introduced to the State Duma. It is officially called the Federal Law on Digital Financial Assets. It is assumed that this law will regulate all possible cryptocurrency transactions in the country. At the moment, this area remains in the shadow of domestic law. Transactions themselves are not prohibited, but the sale of cryptocurrencies in Russia can serve as a sufficient basis for checking for involvement in the laundering of illegally obtained incomes or the financing of terrorism.
According to this bill, the Ministry of Finance wants to legalize such transactions. Operations will be allowed, but certain restrictions and prohibitions will be established. It is assumed that both individuals and legal entities will be able to create, exchange and store cryptocurrency, as well as buy and sell it for real money. And in this case we are talking not only about common bitcoins, but also about any other currencies.
Cryptocurrency Sale Limitations
Significant restrictions are planned on cryptocurrency trading. For example, all transactions can be carried out only through specialized operators. These will be domestic legal entities with appropriate licenses.
In such exchangers a special account and electronic wallet will be opened. In this case, the private key to it will not be issued to the ordinary participant, the actual owner will be the exchanger itself. It will be he who will have the opportunity to block the account at the request of the authorities. The procedure for maintaining and opening such accounts for the sale of cryptocurrency has yet to be developed by the Central Bank.
The bill is still under development; many questions remain on it. For example, it is not known whether it will be possible to withdraw cryptocurrency from the old wallet to the new one. It is possible that the bill will recognize only those electronic wallets that appeared after the identification of their owners by exchangers. There remains the possibility that withdrawing money from accounts that appeared before the adoption of the law will be prohibited.
It is also unclear what the identification itself will be. It is assumed that owners will be required to be identified in accordance with the Federal Law on Combating Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism. But in this case, the actual owner of the wallet will be the exchanger, therefore, it may just be set limits on transactions, as in the case of buying or selling foreign currency. And transactions beyond these limits will be possible only after identification.
Cryptocurrency status
According to this bill, cryptocurrency will not be considered money in the usual sense. Separately, it is agreed that it will be considered a special type of electronic property. It is also assumed that the sale of tokens and the ICO procedure will be regulated similarly to the placement of securities. Just these transactions are considered one of the most risky, and even banned in individual states. True, these are not advanced Western economies, but, for example, South Korea and China.
It is noted that a large number of ICOs are carried out by fraudsters, and investors because of this risk losing their savings. Apparently, in order to protect just ordinary people from potential risks, the Ministry of Finance is planning to limit the purchase of tokens by individuals to the amount of only 50 thousand rubles. But it is not planned to extend this restriction to qualified investors. It is assumed that strict limits will be set by the Central Bank.
It was decided to consider mining at the Ministry of Finance as one of the varieties of entrepreneurial activity; federal government agencies will issue special licenses for mining. It is not yet clear whether individual entrepreneurs will be able to deal with them and whether it will be necessary to pay value-added tax on these activities.
If you decide to do this without obtaining a license, then, according to general rules, this may lead to administrative or criminal liability for tax evasion and illegal business activities.
An interesting point. The version of the bill that has been submitted to the federal parliament emphasizes that mining will be considered entrepreneurial activity only when the person who carries out it exceeds the energy consumption limits set by the Russian government for three consecutive months.
Cryptocurrency Trading Methods
Today, more and more often, the need arises to make operations for the sale or purchase of cryptocurrency, so with each passing month the number of people involved in this process only increases.
In order to figure out how to do this, in this article we will talk in detail about the three methods that currently exist. Each of them has its advantages and disadvantages. It is worth noting that trade in this market itself is a very risky enterprise, therefore, before entering the market, you must independently evaluate all the risks, be aware of the likely losses.
Deal with a friend
One of the most reliable cryptocurrency sales strategies is a deal with a friend. Here, the probability of getting into trouble is minimized, but this is the most labor-intensive way. It takes time to find such a friend. This is complicated by the fact that due to constant changes in the value of the cryptocurrency, there are fewer and fewer people who are ready to publicly and openly admit that they have at their disposal bitcoins or another cryptocurrency, and even more so to disclose the specific amount they have at their disposal.
However, this is the best option for beginners who take only the first steps in this market. If this is the first time you want to buy cryptocurrency, but do not want to contact exchange points or register on the exchange, then this is the best way.
The choice of cryptocurrency and wallet
It is also important to choose a currency and wallet. There are a huge number of cryptocurrencies and several types of wallets. Of the currencies, the most popular is bitcoins, and wallets are divided into the following types:
- Web Services
- desktop programs;
- mobile applications;
- hardware keys.
It is worth recognizing right away that it is impossible to give optimal and universal advice on choosing a wallet. First of all, you need to focus on security considerations and personal needs. It is believed that hardware keys and desktop programs are much more reliable than mobile applications and web services.
At the same time, using web services and mobile applications is much easier, faster and more convenient than other wallets. At the same time, they have special ways to protect their savings. For example, secret phrases, authentication by key file or private key. However, modern attackers have already learned how to successfully circumvent them.
After you have completed the registration, the system itself will generate a unique address for your wallet.If you are making a deal with your good friend, then before you begin, discuss with him all the details in advance, as well as the payment method.
When selling or buying cryptocurrency, money can be transferred to a bank card, they can be transferred in cash or withdraw to the account of any payment system. At this stage, it is worth paying attention that each bank has a limit when transferring money from one card to another. As a rule, the amounts are limited to 50 or 100 thousand rubles per day.
Now you need to get fiat money from a friend and find out the address of his cryptocurrency wallet, to which you will send virtual money. The time of the entire operation depends on the load existing on the network. Most often, transaction processing takes from several minutes to several hours, but at certain points it can reach several days.
Advantages and disadvantages of this method
The obvious advantages of this method include minimal risks, especially if you know a reliable person you are sure of, as well as the lack of commission for selling cryptocurrency, unless your friend asks for a percentage for the services rendered to you.
The disadvantages of this method include the fact that it is not suitable for large transactions, and the process of finding a person who is ready to enter into a similar transaction with you takes a very long time.
Exchange point
This method of selling cryptocurrency in the Russian Federation is practically no different from the previous one, with the exception that instead of a friend you know personally, you have to deal with an exchange point. This increases the likely risks. For example, if something goes wrong during the transaction, you will almost certainly lose money.
In this case, the exchange point is an organization that has cryptocurrency and fiat money on its account, and is ready to enter into transactions with you for its purchase or sale. Earnings of the exchanger consists of the commission, which is taken from each transaction.
If you decide to dwell on this method, then, first of all, you need to decide on the choice of the exchanger itself. Experienced players in the cryptocurrency market are advised to turn to the convenient BestChange aggregator. With it, you can find out what reviews users leave about a particular exchanger, and he also collects courses on cryptocurrency transactions that currently exist.
Previously, there were quite a lot of convenient platforms for selling cryptocurrency. They could, both buy and sell bitcoins. However, today many of them are blocked throughout the Russian Federation. Now you can use them when selling cryptocurrencies in Moscow only using a VPN.
Operations in the exchanger are performed as follows. Users who are individuals leave applications for the purchase or sale of cryptocurrency in the Russian Federation or any other country, your geographical location in this case does not matter. For the operation, you can use various popular electronic money services, for example, Qiwi wallet or Yandex.Money, as well as credit and debit cards of many domestic banks, for example, Tinkoff Bank or Sberbank. By the way, the Telegram bot for the sale of cryptocurrency also acts on a similar principle.
If you use such a bot, then note that the quotes will differ from the exchange commission and the payment method itself. Each exchanger has its own rules for processing transactions, some express their willingness to deal with any amount of bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies, others set limits on the maximum and minimum transaction amounts. In this case, the transactions themselves are carried out automatically or, in extreme cases, in a semi-automatic mode.The administration of some exchangers may ask you to send a photo of your bank card if you choose a bank transfer as a method of payment or receive money for the sale of cryptocurrency for rubles.
If you decide to make a choice in favor of exchangers, then there are several recommendations that will help you go this way with minimal losses. To begin with, you should carefully study the reviews of other users about transactions already completed, this will help to understand how reliable this exchanger is. Then look at the history of transactions and the sales volume of the cryptocurrency in the exchanger to understand what its stocks are in virtual and fiat funds. So you will understand whether this exchanger is suitable for your goals.
By choosing the method of transferring money and the amount of cryptocurrency that you plan to implement, you can immediately weed out exchangers with too high minimum limits that are not suitable for you. And the last tip, try to choose the exchange point and method for transferring money that will require as little personal data as possible.
You can monitor the progress of your transaction using a special service called Etherscan. In order to use it, you only need to enter the corresponding transaction hash value in the search bar.
The advantages of this method include the fact that you have the opportunity to sell and buy cryptocurrency at any time of the day, in addition, the process itself is as automated as possible, therefore it is impossible to make a mistake if you are careful and concentrated.
At the same time, when selling bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies through exchangers, there are enough objective minuses. There is a risk of accessing a fraudulent resource, in addition, transactions are not anonymous, you cannot be sure if your exchangers will not transfer your phone numbers, email addresses and bank card information to anyone else. Any transaction may fail due to force majeure. For example, if a failure occurs in the network or on the servers of the exchange point itself. In this case, no one guarantees that you will be able to return the money. Finally, the amount of transactions is usually limited by the limits of payment systems and banks.
To minimize risks, you need to carefully study all the information about the exchange office that you plan to use, carefully read the user agreement, paying particular attention to the rules for refunding, check the amounts and details that you specify in the application, try to leave a minimum of your personal data.
Stock exchange
Another way is a cryptocurrency exchange. It should be noted right away that this is the most risky platform for carrying out such operations. But at the same time, it is also considered the most profitable, primarily due to the fact that it is allowed to conduct margin trading, that is, to use borrowed funds when selling or buying assets.
The main risk is associated with the fact that on the cryptocurrency exchange, traders' assets are located on the respective exchange accounts. If hackers manage to crack them, as has already happened, or they close due to technical problems, and there were such precedents, then users risk losing all their savings.
Currently, not a single crypto exchange guarantees the Russians the preservation of their savings. Moreover, due to gaps in the legislation, they work outside the legal field, which means that it will not be possible to influence them by legal methods.
To enter fiat funds and each exchange its own rules. Some allow you to attach a bank card, but charge a commission for this, in addition, the cost of bitcoin in this case is on average 10% higher than the market.
For example, in order for fiat money to get on the exchange, you need to go through the verification procedure, which can take from one week to a whole month.In addition, many exchanges today have limited the registration of new users, and it is not known when it will resume again.
At some exchanges, you can enter fiat funds using Yandex.Money or Qiwi. The commission is from 5 to 10%.
Each trader on the exchange places an order to sell cryptocurrency or fiat funds. There are many types of orders, the most common - limit and market.
A market order means that the transaction will be concluded at the market value of the cryptocurrency you have chosen, and a limit order means that it will be necessary to comply with specific conditions.
Also, exchanges may differ in tariffs that are set for operations. After the transaction is completed, funds can be withdrawn immediately. To write them off, you will need to indicate the address of the virtual money wallet and indicate the required amount. The exchange will independently calculate the number of cryptocurrencies taking into account all commissions.
The advantages of this method are that trading takes place instantly, transactions can be made in large volumes. At the same time, too large commissions are set for depositing and withdrawing funds, and besides, it is practically impossible to control your assets in any way.
Earnings on the sale of cryptocurrencies
Today, operations with cryptocurrencies allow many to make a profit. The essence of the method is to perform speculative operations. That is, the trader will have to purchase digital currency as cheaply as possible in order to sell this asset in the future as profitable for himself as possible. The difference between the cost of sale and purchase will amount to net profit.
This method of earning is used in all financial markets without exception. For example, you can also earn by reselling currency, commodities, stock indices or precious metals. But the cost of all standard tools changes randomly, so it is very difficult to predict when they will begin to rise in price and become cheaper.
The same thing happens with cryptocurrencies, which creates the basis for trade. At the same time, most well-known cryptocurrencies have been constantly growing lately, which creates good prospects for stable earnings.
But even at quiet exchange trading, you can find out how to make money selling cryptocurrencies. They are characterized by slight fluctuations, but bursts of activity may be accompanied by plums or large purchases. Thus, the cost of one bitcoin can change for hundreds of dollars in just a few hours. Based on this, an experienced investor is able to determine the ideal moment to acquire or sell.
It is also beneficial that you do not have to pay the tax on the sale of cryptocurrency, at least for now. In Russia, its status has not yet been determined; tax regulators have not given specific instructions; therefore, it may not be declared.
At the same time, the government is already developing ways to collect tax on the sale of cryptocurrencies. The State Duma is discussing a bill according to which it will be required to pay 13% when selling bitcoins or other virtual money. It is possible that the law will be adopted in the summer of 2018, while tax holidays can be introduced for two years. But there is no clear understanding of how to track such a profit yet.