HISAMOVA ZARINA I.

The growth of the digital asset ecosystem has led to the emergence of hundreds of crypto exchanges that facilitate the trade of digital assets. This phenomenon did not remain without the attention of malefactors. Today, we can talk about an independent type of “cryptocurrency exchange crime”. The article analyzes the key criminal trends and formulates the main recommendations for the prevention of criminal encroachments in the cryptocurrency market. At the moment, one of the most common manipulative schemes is “pump and dump”, which became notorious at the turn of the 90s and 2000s. To date, no jurisdiction has created an effective protection regime against such fraud. The authors highlight the main reasons for the low efficiency of the measures taken: the presence of digital assets on the Internet led to the online nature of all stages of manipulations coordinated by anonymous groups in social networks; wide availability and lack of restrictions on the placement of tokens predetermined their regular and widespread placement (as opposed to an IPO); selfish interest of crypto-exchange sites that receive a commission from a transaction. It is emphasized that regulators’ search for a balance between innovation and investor protection is driving the reluctance of many jurisdictions to introduce proper criminal law protection regimes.

The article presents the results of a detailed analysis of the proposed legal concepts of regulation of digital financial assets in the Russian Federation. The key advantages and disadvantages of legal models, features of the mechanism of legal regulation, existing shortcomings and advantages are identified. In particular, the analysis identified conceptual contradictions and shortcomings of the bills ‘On alternative ways to attract investment (crowdfunding)', ‘On digital financial assets', ‘On amendments to parts one, two and four of the Civil code of the Russian Federation', as well as the final bill ‘On digital financial assets and on amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation'. On the basis of the detailed analysis the authors come to the conclusion about the inconsistency of the concept of the final bill. In particular, it is argued that the proposed regulation is unsystematic and illogical. The authors express concern about the inconsistencies in the interpretation of digital financial assets in the framework of the proposed bill, the global practice of understanding such assets, as well as the conceptual contradictions to the FATF position. In addition, the authors offer an analysis of the bill ‘On digital assets' developed by the Center for digital economy and financial innovation of MGIMO University.