Comparative analysis of the legal regulation of digital financial assets in Russia and other countries

Today, cryptoeconomics is actively developing throughout the globe, that is, the use of cryptographic technologies for creation of new digital products, including the issuance of financial instruments based on cryptographic technologies, such as digital financial assets. The topic of regulation of digital financial assets (hereinafter referred to as DFA) is relevant in the world: since 2019, some countries, including Russia, for the first time began to introduce legal norms regarding the issuance of digital financial assets, as well as the sale and turnover of such assets on the market. The purpose of the article is to compare approaches to the regulation of digital financial assets in Russia and in the world, including the issues of determining financial instruments that will be related to digital financial assets, aspects of the procedure for issuing, storing and trading digital financial assets, including the basic rights and obligations of issuers and investors in such assets, features of the operation of trading floors and platforms for issuing DFA. In general, two approaches can be distinguished in countries to the regulation of DFA. The first approach is the application of existing rules to tokenized assets (for example, laws on securities and financial instruments), this approach is used in the United States. The second approach is regulation through the introduction of a new regulatory framework for the application of distributed ledger technology in financial services, for example, in Russia, Germany, Luxembourg, the EU and Switzerland. This paper compares exactly the second approach, which is currently implemented in Russia, to identify differences with foreign regulation, for example, in terms of using the custodian institution for accounting and storing digital assets, converting digital financial assets into traditional financial assets, creating rules for trading digital financial assets, etc.