The Supreme Court of Russia has officially recognized cryptocurrency as one of the possible ways of laundering illegal income. The concept of “cryptocurrency” was included in the resolution as of 2015 concerning cases of laundering money and property acquired by criminal means. Federal Service for Financial Monitoring previously drew attention to the vulnerability of the economy due to the lack of regulation of cryptocurrency: now the legal status of such assets is not defined in Russia; in fact, they are equal to the property and defined in monetary terms.

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      As the Supreme Court explained, now the articles 174 (Legalization of funds or other property acquired by other persons by criminal means) and 174.1 (Performing financial transactions and other transactions with money or other property knowingly acquired by other persons by criminal means, with a purpose of making it seem a lawful type of possession, or use of this property) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation should apply to virtual currency.

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