Why Ukraine Is Ripe for Cryptocurrency Adoption

Published on by Coindesk | Published on

A relatively unstable state - with a technically sophisticated population - creates a fertile ground for crypto adoption.

Gleb Naumenko, a prominent Bitcoin developer from Ukraine who recently got a $100,000 grant from BitMEX, puts it this way: "Our political situation is somewhat unstable, and Ukrainians are tech-savvy, so this combination creates incentives for people fleeing from fiat to crypto."

Ukraine is the birthplace to teams that founded crypto startups Bitfury, Hacken and Propy, not to mention numerous crypto developers.

While many of these developers are now based abroad, the country is still a competitive jurisdiction for crypto startups, believes Alex Bornyakov, the deputy minister for digital transformation of Ukraine.

Ukraine is now in the midst of passing a law that will regulate crypto as a type of property and describe legitimate procedures for crypto businesses in the country.

Chobanyan founded the first crypto exchange in Ukraine and launched the first Bitcoin meetup in the center of Kyiv in 2014.

In November 2014, the National Bank of Ukraine wrote a letter to Chobanyan saying his crypto enterprise was illegal and had to be closed.

Bornyakov believes clear crypto regulation will attract crypto startups to Ukraine, but startups don't necessarily agree.

Ukraine's crypto market is indeed very active, he said, and with the new law, crypto businesses will stop hiding from the tax agency.

Oleksiy Feshchenko, an adviser on anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing at the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime, which is also helping Ukraine to draft the crypto regulation, said there is no time to waste.

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