MOSCOW, March 12 (RAPSI) – The Moscow Commercial Court has explained its reasoning regarding its refusal to include bitcoin into a bankruptcy estate, noting that cryptocurrency has no legal status in Russia and that anonymous nature of transactions with “virtual money” prevents identification of their owners, the court ruling reads.

On February 26, the court dismissed a motion of a financial manager Alexey Leonov asking to include cryptocurrency located at digital wallet of a debtor, Ilya Tsarkov, into the latter’s bankruptcy estate.

According to the court, currently Russian legislation does not provide definition of cryptocurrency and there are no requirements for its circulation. There is no way to tell if it is property, information or “surrogate”, the court notes, stating that it is impossible to regulate the relations involving cryptocurrency.

It was also noted that the use of cryptocurrency presents potential danger, including a risk of being prosecuted for money laundering or financing terrorism.