Bill on regulating virtual assets may be registered next week in Rada

The draft law on the circulation and regulation of virtual assets (VA), which follows from two previously developed draft laws on this topic, will be registered in the Verkhovna Rada next week, according to Dmytro Nikolaevsky, chief lawyer of the project office for the development of the digital economy of Ukraine under the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine.

"Most likely, it (the draft law) will be registered in the parliament next week and will go through the legislative procedure. And, accordingly, the work of the parliament will already begin... I expect that during this year it will be adopted by the parliament, and next year, most likely, it will already work," Nikolaevsky said during the International Conference: "PULSE OF DIGITAL: Client at the Center" in Kyiv on Wednesday.

He noted that the issue of the regulator, which has not yet been determined, is very complex.

However, Nikolaevsky stressed, there is a public, political and social discussion.

"Relatively speaking, three state institutions are encroaching on the role of the regulator at once: the National Securities and Stock Markets Commission, the National Bank (NBU) on the other hand and the Ministry of Digital Affairs," he explained.

According to him, the draft law, which will soon be registered, will contain a Cabinet decision on the regulator, but there is currently no information about the government's position.

"Even the Cabinet itself does not yet know that it will decide this issue later. So for them, this will also be a certain surprise," Nikolaevsky added.

The representative of the Ministry of Digital Affairs also reported that the draft law will be submitted to the Rada immediately with proposals on the taxation of virtual assets. He emphasized that, most likely, the preferential conditions will be as close as possible to those that exist for the taxation of any other income of individuals.

Nikolaevsky noted that the Ministry of Digital Communications is communicating and indicating that a certain transitional period is still needed to ensure maximum de-shadowing of the industry.

"So that for those people who bought their virtual assets once, who spent their money and cannot confirm their expenses, and accordingly they cannot receive, let's say, a deduction from the taxable amount, so that for this certain first period of time - perhaps it will be a year, the first year, the 26th year - there would be a benefit for this period. It could be at the level of 5% of turnover," he noted.

On April 9, the chairman of the parliamentary committee on finance, tax and customs policy, Danylo Hetmantsev, after the completion of the working group on the draft law on VA, announced that it could be submitted for a vote by the Rada's finance committee by the end of April.

In turn, the First Deputy Governor of the NBU, Kateryna Rozhkova, in an interview with the Interfax-Ukraine agency, reported that the draft law on virtual assets in Ukraine with the distribution of powers of regulators will be prepared by October 2025 with the involvement of technical assistance from international partners, and it will be based on the European MiCA directive.