Uzbekistan intends to legalize bitcoin

A draft law, providing for measures for the legal regulation of digital money, should be prepared in Uzbekistan before September 1, 2018.

The Central Bank, the Ministry for the Development of Information Technologies, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economy, as well as a number of other ministries and departments are appointed as reaponsibled for this, Central Asian media outlets reported.

In addition, the president of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, approved the creation of a competence center for distributed ledger (blockchain) technologies at the Mirzo Ulugbek Innovation Center.

Its main tasks will be the formation of conditions for using the capabilities of the blockchain, increasing the human resources and supporting domestic developers in mastering this technology. It is planned that this structure will start working as early as June 1, 2018.

Another important point is that the president instructed to start actively developing and stimulating the widespread use of contactless payment technologies, including using international payment systems such as PayPal, Alipay, Visa and Mastercard. A set of measures in this direction will be developed by June 1, 2018.

Earlier, representatives of the Uzbek Central Bank negatively spoke in relation to virtual money, calling them an instrument for financing terrorism.

At the same time, Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov, while addressing the forum 'Digital Agenda in the Epoch of Globalization in Kazakhstan, spoke in favor of the use of blockchain technology by the Central Asian countries.

Bitcoin is a type of digital currency in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency and verify the transfer of funds, operating independently of a central bank.

In the U.S., Bitcoins are controversial because they can be used to anonymously transfer illicit funds or hide unreported income from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

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