Venezuela: New Crypto Legal Framework Comes Into Force

Venezuela's new crypto bill, which establishes legal framework for the industry, officially came into force on Jan. 31.

The set of rules for miners, crypto entrepreneurs and regular traders was initially approved by Constituent National Assembly - an alternative to the country's Parliament, created in 2017 - in November, 2018.The document titled "Constituent Decree on the Integral System of Crypto Assets" contains 63 articles.

It gives short definitions of key crypto terms, such as crypto assets, blockchain, mining, cryptography, etc.

It introduces the concept of a sovereign crypto asset - any currency issued in Venezuela and authorized by the government.

The same article states that Sunacrip will be able to control "Creation, emission, transfer, commercialization and exchange" of all crypto actives within Venezuela.

The Spanish-language crypto outlet Criptonoticias reported that this part of the document gives Sunacrip the ability to control any crypto commercial platform in the country, be it local or international, centralized or decentralized.

The decree describes the registration procedures for crypto exchanges, wallets, and mining entities.

Article 28 introduces several different types of licenses for crypto startups, depending on their trading volumes, types of crypto assets they manage and other criteria.

In case any crypto-related company violates the licensing rules or fails to properly register with Sunacrip, its owners can be punished with up to one to three years in prison, and fined 50 to 100 sovereign crypto assets.

Its characteristics match with the description of the sovereign crypto asset, as it was issued in Venezuela and approved by government.