Earlier this month Da Vinci Capital – a major EBRD-backed and PE firm focusing on Russia and neighboring countries – announced an investment of 100 million rubles ($1.57 million at the current exchange rate) in BitRussia.
BitRussia presents itself as an international blockchain-based crowdfunding platform. It aims to put together projects and investors using distributed ledgers, asset tokenization and smart contracts.
Now in pre-launch phase, the platform plans to open officially in January 2020. It currently displays some 120 projects from a variety of fields including insurance, banking, entertainment and biotechnologies.
The platform claims full compliance with the EU and Russian legislations.
The Russian legal environment in this field has been clarified with the recent adoption of several important laws:
- Signed by President Putin in March 2019, an amendment to the Russian civil code provides a legal definition for such terms as digital rights and smart contracts. This text came into force on October 1, 2019, providing “a basis for industry regulation,” according to the lawmakers.
- A law on crowdfunding was signed by the President in August 2019 and will come into force on Jan. 1, 2020, allowing BitRussia to start working legally.
- A draft bill on digital financial assets will be submitted to the State Duma in December 2019.
More details on these laws are available in Russian and in English.
