In short, the Payment Services Act defines virtual currencies as proprietary value
that can be transferred using an electronic data processing system and that can be either:
(a) used against unspecified parties as a means of payment and can be traded with
unspecified parties; or
(b) can be exchanged with other virtual currencies defined in (a).
Under the Payment Services Act, the following are not virtual currencies:
(a) Japanese fiat currency;
(b) foreign fiat currency;
(c) assets denominated in fiat currencies;
(d) «prepaid cards» issued in exchange for the prepayment of goods or services;
nor
(e) «points» under point services (services in which points are issued according
to a certain percentage of the sales amount of the goods or services, or are issued for
each visit to the store or use of service) [13].
At the legislative level, cryptocurrency is not recognized as money in Switzerland.
In accordance with the law of Switzerland “On banking activity” transactions with
cryptocurrency were recognized as a means of payment, rather than a transaction for
the provision of services or goods; the Swiss currency (Swiss Franc) can be freely
exchanged for Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Also, transactions with cryptocurrency in this
country were exempted from VAT [3].
In a number of countries, the circulation of virtual currencies is illegitimate. Thus,
in China in 2013, the People's Bank of China issued a “Notification of Bitcoin-related
risk prevention measures”, in which Bitcoin is defined as “special virtual goods” and
it has been established that any transactions for Bitcoin banks are prohibited [10]. Also,
the ban on cryptocurrency exists in Bolivia from 2014.
In normative provision of Ukraine on cryptocurrency there is no clear answer to
the question of “what is cryptology” and how to regulate its operations.
Assuming that cryptocurrency is money, then in accordance with Article 15 of the
Law of Ukraine “On payment systems and transfer of funds in Ukraine”, electronic
money is the unit of value stored on an electronic device, accepted as a means of
payment by other persons than the person who issues them, and is a monetary
obligation of this person, which is executed in cash or in cashless form [5]. However,
this law determines that the issuance of electronic money can be carried out exclusively
by the bank; the issuance of electronic money is carried out by providing them to users
or commercial agents in exchange for cash or non-cash funds; the procedure for the
execution of transactions with electronic money and the maximum amount of
electronic money on an electronic device, which is at the disposal of the user, are
determined by the Regulation on electronic money in Ukraine.
Law of Ukraine On the National Bank of Ukraine, in Article 1, contains
methodological preconditions for assigning the so-called “cryptocurrency” to money
surrogates, which are “any documents in the form of banknotes different from the
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