In Ukraine, two draft laws which aim to set out the legal basis for blockchain/cryptocurrency businesses in Ukraine have been proposed.
The first draft law first submitted in October 2017 is concerned with taxation and provides for decreased corporate income tax, which is to be applied to margin earned on cryptocurrency deals (rather than turnover) and provides rules for the application of VAT.
The latest draft law (reported here) seeks to define distributed ledger and smart contract technology. It also provides certain basic rules and a licensing regime for cryptocurrency exchanges and dealers and appoints the Securities Commission as the responsible regulator. The draft law also mentions other market participants such as transaction validators (miners) and asset holders (crypto wallets). However, these participants would not be subject to the licensing regime.
These draft laws are now in the final phase of collecting comments from the market/stakeholders. The working group is comprised of, among others, certain market participants, Members of Parliament and Securities Commission officers. At a recent press conference in Ukraine, one of the Ukranian Members of Parliament indicated that the intention is to push these draft laws through the Ukrainian Parliament by the end of 2018.
