YEREVAN, May 29. /ARKA/. On Thursday, the National Assembly of Armenia approved in the second and final reading a draft law On Crypto Assets and amendments to a number of related laws.
According to Armen Nurbekyan, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank, the draft law is fundamental and will, in fact, provide specifics for investors and consumers.
“The crypto assets market presents a huge opportunity, but there are many associated risks, and our goal is to balance all these risks in order to take advantage of the opportunities without exposing our investors and consumers to significant risk. It is also important that, in terms of the private sector and investors, a very specific legal framework is being created, meaning that if someone wants to carry out economic activities in this field, everything will be clearly presented,” Nurbekyan noted.
Speaking about the main change made between the first and second readings, he noted that banks will not be able to directly provide related services with their licenses, and if a holding group wants to provide such services, it will have to open a new company and obtain a new license.
Among the main types of regulated services, Nurbekyan named: launching a trading platform; storing crypto assets; offering tokens (stablecoins) pegged to an asset; buying and selling (exchanging) crypto assets at one’s own expense; buying and selling crypto assets at the client’s expense; accepting and transmitting orders to conduct transactions with crypto assets; placing crypto assets; managing a portfolio of crypto assets; consulting related to crypto assets; transferring crypto assets.
According to Finance Minister Vage Hovhannisyan, the adoption of the law will establish a predictable environment with clearly defined rights and obligations for entrepreneurs operating in the field, with sufficient security mechanisms for users and mechanisms to ensure transparency.
According to the Central Bank, the law establishes minimum capital thresholds for companies and conditions for their entry into the market, requirements for reporting on the protection of client funds and the prevention of abuse in the crypto asset market, separate accounting for services with crypto assets — both for each client and for own funds — as well as reporting to the Central Bank and clients. -0-
