The circulation of cryptocurrencies in Ukraine is UAH 1 billion per day, Maksym Demianiuk, the advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine and the Minister of Digital Transformation, said.
“If we are talking about the virtual asset market […], this is one of the most interesting and promising markets in the world […] If we are talking about where Ukraine is [unfortunately, this is unofficial information, it will appear only after regulation appears], then this is about UAH 1 billion per day,” he said during the Ukrainian Financial Forum.
According to him, cryptocurrencies are 50 times higher than deposits in Ukrainian hryvnia-denominated shares and securities excluding government domestic loan bonds.
“We cannot pretend that it does not exist [the cryptocurrency market in Ukraine], that is why in the last year and a half the Ministry of Digital Transformation has set itself the task of providing regulation of this market,” Demianiuk said, pointing out that the lack of legal regulation is the main problem in this issue.
The Council of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) at a meeting on June 23 called on the NBU Board and the Cabinet of Ministers to speed up the drafting of bills on the regulation of cryptocurrencies, NBU Council Head Bohdan Danylyshyn has said.
“The NBU Council, in particular, decided to approve the recommendations […] to the NBU Board and the Cabinet of Ministers in order to minimize the risks of macro-financial stability in connection with the spread of transactions with virtual assets, and to accelerate the preparation of legislative acts on the regulation of the market of virtual assets and transactions with them,” the head of the Council wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.
According to Danylyshyn, the Council also recommended the NBU Board to analyze the impact of the spread of transactions with virtual assets on the activities of central banks, in particular, on the monetary and financial stability polices, the development of payment technologies and the emergence of new regulatory processes (RegTech).
The index of use of virtual assets by the population of Ukraine is the highest in the world, according to a study by the analytical blockchain company The Chainalysis, posted on the website of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine.
According to the report, when calculating the index, analysts took into account the cost of sent crypto assets per capita, the balances of crypto assets at the addresses (wallets) of Internet users in Ukraine, as well as the volume of P2P and retail transactions (<$ 10,000), calculated at purchasing power parity.
It is noted that the high performance of Ukraine is due, among other things, to the world's largest (the top three) community of blockchain developers, a significant crypto community, a high level of digital awareness of the population, as well as a high-quality educational intellectual basis and a significant number of small businesses that mediate on international marketplaces where cryptocurrency is used for payments.
In addition, the primacy was influenced by the presence of legal and banking system restrictions on international transfers and a number of restrictions in more traditional areas, in particular the non-availability of a stock market, limited access to the global capital market, and high entry into the real estate market.
"The market of virtual assets in Ukraine is quite developed and has a significant turnover even on a global scale, but most of it is concentrated in the shadow zone, which creates potential risks for both the state, business and users," the press service of the ministry said.
It added that the ministry continues to create a legal framework for regulating the cryptocurrency market in Ukraine and hopes that in September the profile draft law on virtual assets will be considered by the parliament.
The Chainalysis is the leading blockchain analytics company that provides blockchain data and analytics to government and financial institutions, as well as participants in the virtual asset market.
