This article has been prepared for the research purpose of identifying, disclosing, and justifying certain trends in the development of civil law and procedures in the context of the spread of smart contract practices and the expansion of their spheres of application. At the moment, there is no uniform approach to choosing an optimal form for the legal regulation of smart contracts within the system of contract law in modern legal systems or international law; meanwhile, globalization and the digitalization of the economy imply the growth of cross-border transactions. The emergence of smart contracts is due to the development of e-commerce, in which the parties’ interactions are carried out electronically instead of in physical exchanges or direct physical contact. Smart contracts gaining popularity in circulation are based on two interrelated elements: firstly, they eliminate a person’s direct participation in some or all cases of executing the agreement using an automated code designed for execution without reference to the intentions of the contracting parties after publication; secondly, they make use of decentralized blockchain technology, and also provide automatic code execution without any party’s potential intervention, so as to eliminate or reduce the self-control and third-party control of the commitment. This study examines the content, conclusion, validity, protection of rights and legitimate interests of the parties, interpretation, and legal nature of smart contracts. The research materials used foreign experience in resolving disputes from smart contracts on digital platforms (Kleros, JUR, Aragon Network Justice, OpenCourt, OpenBazaar), as well as domestic and foreign literature on smart contracts. This research has been prepared based on general (deduction, dialectical analysis, intersectoral relations of objects) and specialized (comparative-legal, economic-legal) methods of scientific experimentation. The authors conclude that there are no grounds for considering a smart contract as a new classification element of the system of contractual regulation (type or kind of contract). In addition, the analysis shows that the resolution of smart contract disputes through digital platforms remains radically uncertain, and currently is not creating obvious advantages in comparison with traditional judicial proceedings.
The article examines the features of criminal liability for transactions related to the circulation of cryptocurrencies. In order to determine the specifics of criminal violations in the field of cryptocurrency circulation, the legal nature of cryptocurrencies is studied. It is concluded that in order to properly qualify criminal offenses related to the circulation of cryptocurrencies, it is advisable to recognize cryptocurrencies as a type of property or money. The article analyzes the global approaches to the legal regulation of relations related to the circulation of cryptocurrencies. Based on the results of this analysis, it is concluded that relations regarding cryptocurrencies in most countries of the world are insufficiently regulated and are still outside of the legal field. This complicates, inter alia, the establishment of criminal liability for transactions involving the circulation of cryptocurrencies. A significant part of the article is devoted directly to the study of criminal liability for transactions involving the circulation of cryptocurrencies in different countries. The norms of the Criminal Codes, which establish liability for criminal violations in the field of cryptocurrency circulation, are analyzed. The measures that need to be implemented to ensure the control of government agencies over the circulation of cryptocurrencies and the security of all operations related to cryptocurrencies are identified.
The present paper analyses the aspects of investigations of crime involving cryptocurrencies as a payment instrument. Ever since their emergence, cryptocurrencies have come to be actively used by criminals in all types of illegal activities, such as drug trafficking, money laundering, illegal arms trade, payments for criminal services and many other crimes. The paper aims to establish the methods of crime investigation to track data on cryptocurrency transactions and identify and show up the participants of illegal operations. The author shows that the development of computer and digital information technologies and the Internet has brought about the ever-increasing prevalence of cryptocurrencies in all social domains, including the shadow sector, i. e., the criminal world. Figures are provided illustrating the overall circulation of cryptocurrencies in the world and its illegal segment. Explaining the attractiveness of cryptocurrencies for criminal structures, the author points at its anonymity and inadequate regulation of various aspects in laws. An analysis is provided of the practice of countries where cryptocurrency circulation is not only permitted but regulated to a maximum possible extent. The impact of such regulation for the state of the shadow cryptocurrency market is shown. The research further concerns the potential for bringing international expertise to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Potential methods of crime investigation concerning shadow cryptocurrency transactions are outlined, helping to identify and show up the participants involved. Forecasts are provided as to the development of modern forensics and the emergence of new forensic methods helping to uncover cryptocurrency-related crime; proposals are drawn for amending criminal and criminal procedure laws to facilitate investigations in the new context.
The article examines the modern view of art in the digital space and the regulation of intellectual property in connection with this phenomenon. The author reveals the concept of blockchain and non-fungible token, their development and impact on the rights of creators. There are many challenges for digital artists today. One of them is that digital art objects can be easily copied as many times as you want. Yes, many will say that you can just save a picture and such saved copies would not differ from the original. But there is one nuance, or rather the opportunity provided by NFT – it’s the right to own the original version of the work. It is like having an original painting on display at the Louvre, and other reproductions and copies outside it will only promote and increase the value of this work, as it will become more recognizable. Therefore, NFT allows you to capture your intellectual property rights, which are confirmed in the blockchain. The use of NFT can be a new tool in the field of intellectual property management, creating new opportunities for the market and its participants, making it more convenient, because transactions with tokens are cheap, simple and faster than transactions with real objects to which they are tied. It is worth noting that the hype surrounding the use of NFT does not revolutionize art, computer games, or intellectual property itself, but it does offer significant new opportunities that deserve attention.
Cryptocurrency is a new economic phenomenon, a product of globalization, which from a historical point of view is characterized by the authors as a completely natural phenomenon of some obvious trends in digitalization. The authors analyze the impact of the 2019-2020 pandemic on the innovation of social, economic and even political spheres of life. It is stated that coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has shown how important it is to have a strong state in today’s world and how important its organizational-administrative and social functions may be, with the state simply being irreplaceable in this area for now. People’s expectations of the state in the current climate of global threats and emergencies are quite high, with everybody interested in a strong state and waiting for some active action on its part. In a crisis, a strong state has to be financially and organizationally powerful, which may require utilizing all available mechanisms. The current situation suggests the possibility of the traditional institutional state coexisting with the decentralized cryptocurrency market. It is concluded that a strong state in a crisis should have financial and organizational strength, which can be achieved only by using all available resources of the state. However, this thesis does not call for" headlong " legalizing potentially useful tools, but rather cautiously assessing the prospects for introducing innovations.
Aim: Cryptocurrency trading is similar to problematic gambling behavior, with its high-risk factors and its methods of use. In this sense, it can become addictive. The aim of this study is to develop a valid and reliable scale to measure Problematic Cryptocurrency Trading among individuals who trade cryptocurrency. Method: ) goodness of fit criteria were used. The Amos 23 software package was used for the data analysis. Results: As a result of the exploratory factor analysis, a two-factor structure was obtained. For the total scores of the scale, Cronbach's alpha reliability value was found to be 0.913, and for the sub-factors, Cronbach's alpha values were found to be 0.897 and 0.866. The factor loadings of items varied between 0.786 and 0.597 for the first sub-factor and between 0.869 and 0.683 for the second sub-factor. The confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the two-factor structure of the scale, and the goodness of fit criteria were found to be at acceptable levels. Conclusion: It was determined that the Problematic Cryptocurrency Trading Scale is a valid and reliable scale.
The appearance of cryptocurrency has become a high-profile event, around which disputes still persist. Some see it as a direct threat to the security of national economy, some as a long-awaited triumph of market principles of self-regulation. The necessity, expediency and the most effective model of regulating the cryptocurrency market are burning issues. The relevance of these issues in the context of Russian reality is proved at least by the fact that Russia is one of the leading countries in the use of digital currency, and the number of crypto wallets opened by Russians has exceeded 8 million. The aim of this article is to review the currently existing opinions and accumulated experience in solving the problem of regulating the digital currency market.
The use of smart contracts has grown exponentially over the last few years. This is a phenomenon associated with the development of other technologies, such as the blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT). Smart contracts run in a decentralized way on the blockchain and are self- executing. This is a source of advantages in business operations, but there are also some limitations and drawbacks. Regulatory issues are also of key importance, as the legal frameworks differ across countries. Smart contracts are likely to have an impact on external auditing, as external auditors will have to adapt their capabilities and procedures to an environment where many companies use this technology. But smart contracts may also be used to define a framework which ensures continuous audit reports and direct access of authorized stakeholders to the results of audit procedures. Conversely, internal auditing will also experiment changes, both caused by a series of new risks that will have to be adequately addressed and new tools to monitor business operations. In addition, some promising research opportunities arise, both in the IT, the Legal and the Business field.
The study is dedicated to various jurisdictions’ approaches to cryptocurrency relations regulation. The digital assets'legal status in the European Union is analyzed both at the central level as well at the level of such EU members as Malta, Romania, Germany. Among the countries that geographically belong to Europe, but are not members of the European Union, Switzerland and the United Kingdom are considered in this aspect. The authors also reviewed the most important issues of cryptocurrency regulation in the largest economy in the world - the United States. The Asian region is represented in the study by the jurisdictions where digital assets are most widespread (China and Japan). The main conclusion is that the Republic of Moldova should develop the balanced approach to legalizing the new sphere of socio-economic relations by taking into consideration both positive and negative experience as well as the best legal practices of other states in this field.
Blockchain's usage is increasing, and the number of possible implications that have been explored and created is mind-boggling. This paper would look at some other potential blockchain implementations in the legal sector, especially in the sense of social regulation. The blockchain-based social regulator, which is neither created nor supported by any government or governmental institution, has the potential to transform the planet or its components into something known as a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). These assumptions are most likely too broad. The presented research focuses on a key and practical overview of regulations in a blockchain DAO that could be framed in the future and has the potential to affect current legal essentials. The study applies comparative method, using international public law and Lex Mercatoria as primary juxtaposition.
The article is devoted to the problems of improving the tax legislation of Russia at the stage of active implementation of blockchain technology, which is characterized by contradictory trends in the legal regulation of digital technologies. The relevance of the study of application of blockchain in tax relations is due to the need to assess the tax consequences of transactions using digital financial assets, as well as emergence of new directions for improving tax control based on blockchain technology. The purpose of the study is to analyze the provisions of Russian and foreign tax legislation, as well as doctrinal sources on improving legal regulation of tax relations in regard to blockchain technology. The study shows efficacy of the blockchain analysis for the purposes of tax and legal regulation carried out by developing concepts related to applying such technological solution as a tool in conducting cryptocurrency transactions. The theoretical significance of the study lies in the authors definition of the concept of blockchain technology for tax purposes, as well as in proving the value of legal regulation of tax relations applying blockchain. The practical implication is connected with voicing the need to develop legal regulation of applying blockchain technology when creating a system of transactional (automatic) taxation and levying the so-called smart taxes while fulfilling tax obligations in the context of introducing a goods traceability mechanism. This will also contribute to minimizing tax reporting. The research methodology are general and private scientific methods of knowledge: formal-legal, analysis, comparative-legal, and forecasting and modeling. The last two are often applied in tax law in light of digitalization and globalization.
This article is devoted to the analysis of the legal framework for the digitization of public procurement, doctrinal approaches to the use of smart contracts in procurement. It studies the process and technologies of formation and development of smart contracts, blockchain, contracting in ethereum, the mechanisms of using smart contracts in public procurement. It also explores aspects that need to be addressed in improving the procurement system through smart contracts and develops recommendations.
Bei der Kryptokunst handelt es sich nicht um klassische Kunstwerke zum Anfassen, sondern um digitale. Bisher standen diese nicht auf derselben Stufe wie analoge, die teils für enorme Beträge verkauft werden. Wer ein physisches Kunstwerk erworben hat, kann es beispielsweise sicher im Safe verstauen. Kryptokunst dagegen kann meist grenzen- und kostenlos heruntergeladen, vervielfältigt oder geteilt werden. Wie kann also das Eigentum an einem digitalen Kunstwerk nachgewiesen werden? Beim Erwerb von Kryptokunst spielen NFTs (non-fungible tokens) eine große Rolle. Das sind nicht ersetzbare Zeichen, die als digitale Besitzurkunde bzw. Echtheitszertifikat fungieren. Gearbeitet wird dabei mit der Blockchain-Technologie (vgl. stichwort der merz 2018/03), welche die Basis für Kryptowährungen bildet. In dieser fälschungssicheren Datensatzliste wird eingeschrieben, wer das Objekt gekauft hat. Wer das NFT besitzt, besitzt damit das ‚Original‘ der Datei. In der Regel bleibt das Werk dennoch für alle verfügbar. Dieses Jahr wurde Kryptokunst erstmalig beim Aktionshaus Christie’s als NFT versteigert. Die digitale Bildcollage ‚Everydays: The First 5000 Days‘ aus 5.000 Einzelbildern des Künstlers Beeple erreichte 69 Millionen US-Dollar. Digitale Kunstwerke können auch auf Internetplattformen wie Nifty Gateway erworben werden. Bisher wurden NFTs in den verschiedensten Bereichen verkauft: Beispielsweise das bekannte Meme ‚Disaster Girl‘, das GIF ‚Nyan Cat‘, Musik sowie virtuelles Land in Games. Das besondere bei NFTs: Die Künstler*innen können bei jedem neuen Verkauf mitverdienen und ihre Werke weltweit direkt anbieten. Allerdings ist Kryptokunst stark an den Wert von Kryptowährungen gekoppelt und der CO2-Verbrauch beim Erstellen und durch den enormen Rechenaufwand beim Handeln der Werke ist hoch. Ob der Markt für Kryptokunst zukunftsfähig ist, ist bisher nicht absehbar.
Possible scenarios for using blockchain technology in the field of education are considered. Methods and technologies of tokenization of assets, related to the educational process, are investigated. It is concluded, that the blockchain technology is decentralized and transparent with a high degree of reliability, which ensures the equality of all users of the chain's services. The transparency of the technology guarantees the participants in the process against abuse and forgery of documents. The study of the features of smart contracts made it possible to form the advantages of smart contracts in the field of education. This is, first of all, the conclusion of agreements without the participation of third parties, as well as the security and confidentiality of agreements. This ensures that the terms and subject of the agreement are kept secret, and that no one else can amend the agreement. At the same time, storing the contract in encrypted form ensures its confidentiality. A decrease in the cost of operations was noted. Tokenization of educational assets is considered on the example of preparing and defending a thesis with the subsequent registration of a diploma. The processes of passing the thesis in the context of using blockchain technology and issuing smart contracts are considered in detail. The advantages of using blockchain technology and smart contracts are illustrated with specific examples. A study of the means and mechanisms for ensuring the confirmation of the authenticity of educational documents, the confidentiality of students' personal cards, and student identification has been carried out. To create a decentralized distributed ledger for tokenization of educational assets, it is proposed to use blockchain technology and smart contracts based on the Ethereum platform
The article is devoted to the analysis of cryptocurrency as a new phenomenon in the modern global economic processes and legal institutions. The relevance of the study is predetermined by the very specifics of such a phenomenon as cryptocurrency consisting of a distributed ledger technology, which determines the peculiarities of issuing, storing and performing operations with cryptocurrency. Moreover, the cryptocurrency turnover directly correlates with the national legislation of individual countries, which are the subject of domestic regulation with currency, tax legislation and legislation on the securities market. Sometimes, in this regard, there is a clash of public interests and the interests of entities involved in the circulation of cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrency, as an unconventional, trendy phenomenon of the recent times, has become the object of research and discussions on all the world platforms, starting with academia, continuing with the business community and ending with state institutions. There are many reasons for explaining such interest and they can all be reduced to two main blocks: the advantages and the disadvantages of cryptocurrency circulation. The problem of cryptocurrency turnover, on the one hand, is that until now none of the national economies have regulated the cost-effective mechanism for the cryptocurrency turnover and, on the other hand, the leading countries have not yet set up an effective system of legal regulation of cryptocurrency. Many countries are in the active process of working to adequately address the above problem. Separately, it is worth highlighting the interest of Muslim countries in this issue, where discussions are still underway about the permissibility of cryptocurrency in Islamic law. As for the Russian realities in the context of the issue under study, the Federal Law “On Digital Financial Assets, Digital Currency and on Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation“, which came into effect on 1 January 2021, was supposed to streamline relations of subjects including cryptocurrencies, but, according to the experts in this field, this law is far from impeccable and this sphere of relations cannot be quickly and effectively regulated. This article describes the characteristics of cryptocurrency, its essence, disadvantages and advantages as an object of economic and civil law relations. The purpose of the research is to analyze the economic and legal phenomenon of cryptocurrency, as well as its characteristics in the Muslim legal system. The complexity of the work should be emphasized as a novelty. Based on the designated goal and the logic of construction, the study consists of three interrelated parts. The first part outlines the characteristics of cryptocurrency as an economic category, the second part is devoted to its legal analysis and the last part of the study demonstrates the Islamic perception (Sharia analysis) of this phenomenon. As a conclusion on the scientific research, we will highlight the following provisions. First, economically, nowadays, cryptocurrency is a rather controversial financial instrument: on the one hand, it has great investment attractiveness, but on the other hand, it is subject to great volatility and seems to be a rather risky financial asset. Secondly, from a legal standpoint, cryptocurrencies have not yet found their consistent consolidation and further legal regulation in the Russian legislation. It seems that the legal regulation of this institution will systematically develop depending on what application and results of its turnover the cryptocurrency will have in the future. Finally, the Islamic interpretation of the cryptocurrency phenomenon boils down to the absence of a single, consistent explanation of it from the perspective of Islam and Sharia as an object of permissibility (or prohibition) of transactions with it. It is necessary to further analyze the practice of using cryptocurrency and its impact on the economy and legal institutions in order to make a final decision on its permissibility or prohibition in correlation with the types of activity and the upcoming consequences associated with it.
The purpose of the present article is to gain an understanding of the opportunities and difficulties created by the introduction and development of the practice of network (smart) contracts. Our research methodology is based on a holistic set of principles and methods of scholarly analysis employed by modern legal science. It uses a dialectical method involving both general approaches (structural system method, formal logical method, analysis and synthesis of individual elements, individual features of concepts, abstraction, generalization, etc.) and particular methods (legal technical, systematic, comparative, historical, and grammatical methods, method of the unity of theory and practice, etc.). We analyze the views of lawyers and other specialists from Russia and abroad, legislative innovations in the field of digital technologies, the practice of blockchain-based smart contracts, and the main risks (whether legal, technological, operational, or criminogenic) of smart contracts for economic activities with a study of their causes. In the present-day situation, it is necessary to move from the legal definition of the smart contract and its legal and technological characteristics, advantages and disadvantages to the implementation of startups in a wide range of areas, especially business, public regulation, and social relations. Scholarly and information support for such processes will contribute to the development of industry, public administration and digital technology applications to improve the life of individual citizens and society as a whole. The introduction of smart contracts does not require the adoption of new laws or regulations. Instead, one should adapt and, possibly, modify existing legal principles at the legislative and judicial levels to pave the way for the use of smart contracts and other new technologies. The system of contract law provides a sufficient framework for regulating transactions without the introduction of any new legal categories. We propose approaches to the legal definition of the smart contract and identify a set of problems that must be solved at the legislative and technical legal levels in order to implement smart contracts effectively in different spheres of life.
This paper has four chapters. The first chapter serves as an introduction. The second chapter studies the transaction fees in the bitcoin system. The transaction fees and transaction volume in the bitcoin system increase whenever the network is congested and results from a simple VAR show that it is indeed the case. To account for the empirical findings, we build a model where users and miners together determine the transaction fee and transaction volume endogenously. Even though the fluctuating transaction fee mechanism in bitcoin introduces the extra cost of uncertainty to users, a back-of-envelope calculation shows that the cost of using the bitcoin network for transactions is still smaller than the cost of using the current conventional payment system with a fix transaction fee rate. The second chapter studies the time-varying price dispersion among different bitcoin exchanges. We identify the sources of price dispersion using a standard time-varying vector autoregression model with stochastic volatility. The results show that shocks to transaction fees and bitcoin price growth explain on average 20%, and sometimes more than 60%, of the variation of price dispersion. The third chapter studies the relationship between connections and returns in the bitcoin investor network. Using transaction data from the bitcoin blockchain, we reach three conclusions. First, on average, the annualized returns of connected addresses in the network are 20.75% above those of their unconnected peers. Second, returns also differ among those connected addresses. By dividing the connected ad- dresses into ten deciles based on their centrality, we find that addresses in the two most-connected deciles earn higher returns than the other connected addresses. Third, eigenvector centrality is more related than degree centrality to higher returns, implying that quality of connections matters.
The use of digital technology is increasing in all spheres of society. And the right is no exception. Many technologies are designed to simplify work, save time and serve the goals of globalization of relations, as well as their decentralization. Smart contracts are one way to achieve this goal. The article discusses the possibility of applying smart contracts in the workplace, where the personal nature of relationships is one of the features that directly affect the prospects for the use of smart contracts in the area in question.
The article reviews the essence of blockchain – the technology of new generation, raised from the computer and internet development. The article also analyses several aspects in legal regulation of one of the most famous cryptocurrencies: Ethereum by using the blockchain technology. Except for that, the article describes steps of computer and internet development and the involvement of blockchain in these steps, as a revolutionary invention. The article analyses the essence of blockchain technology, the steps of its development and also, coming from its high confidentiality, the possibilities of its legal regulation by the states. In this regard, several countries are represented as an example (Great Britain, Vietnam, Canada). Except for blockchain, the article reviews essence and specification of Ethereum, as the cryptocurrency, as well as smart contract, analyses the area of smart contract development and the indispensability of its legal regulation, because they have an ability to detach simple consumer agreements in one of the directions of digital economy – electronic commerce, in the nearest future. In addition to this, the binary nature Ethereum is also analyzed, in particular it can be a method of payment, as well as have a form of a legally binding deal – contract with the high self-fulfillment mechanism and securing parties confidentiality standards.
The article focuses on analyzing Bitcoin, its crucial features and applications of crypto-currencies in the context of political consequences. These kinds of instruments have value and their role as a means of payment has been constantly increasing. The attempts to use crypto-currencies by countries that actively try to take advantage of their specific functions and mechanisms is noticed. One of the particular areas of activity aims to bypass economic sanctions. In this situation, the following actors, such as Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, and Russia may be pointed out. As an addition to activities directed at avoiding sanctions, there are also projects of creating crypto-currencies by the state. In essence, these actions are supposed to improve the economic situation of particular actors. Crypto-currencies also bring challenges which are related to the processes of functioning of the state. Law and security are the main areas in this regard.
The article discusses such new financial instrument as cryptocurrency. The authors present the characteristic features of cryptocurrency, advantages and risks of its use. The analysis is aimed at studying cryptocurrency as a legal phenomenon. The article attempts to determine the legal nature of cryptocurrency in accordance with modern foreign and Russian regulations. The authors consider the question of whether cryptocurrency can be the subject of crimes. The result of the analysis is the conclusion about the multidimensionality of the phenomenon and the need for detailed legislative regulation.
Introduction: the digitalization of public relations and the emergence of smart contracts have created the need to study what a smart contract is and whether it is subject to the general principles of the law of obligations. Methods: the methodological framework for the research is a set of methods of scientific knowledge, among which the main ones are the methods of historicism, consistency, and analysis. Results: the possibility of extending the principles of the law of obligations to the relations of the parties when they conclude a smart contract is analyzed. Conclusions: the conclusion is made about the extension of the principles of the law of obligations to smart contracts with the features due to the nature of smart contracts.
<ns2:p>The modern period of development of society and the state is characterized by digitalization of all spheres of social life. One of the tools used in the process of digitization of law is a smart contract, which is considered as a program code intended for functioning in an information system and used as a form of fixing a set of obligations between the parties, as well as a method for automated fulfillment of these obligations. The purpose of the study is a comparative law analysis of the practice of legislating the concept of «smart contract» in legal acts of different states and the justification for considering the use of smart contract as a legal technology. The methods: the author uses general scientific methods (system, historical, formal-logical), specific scientific methods (mathematical, linguistic) and special-legal methods (comparative law, legal forecasting, interpretation of law). The results: the study concludes that the use of a smart contract could be considered as a special type of law enforcement technology representing an activity aimed at implementing the subjective rights and legal obligations of legal entities, carried out using self-executing program code that exists in the digital environment, which allows, first, to record and transmit certain legal information (in this case, a smart contract is considered as a type of written contract form), as well as to automate the fulfillment of obligations when certain conditions are met (in this case, a smart contract is understood as an automated technical method for fulfilling obligations).</ns2:p>
In 2008, a global financial crisis happened. It led to strong currency price volatility. Because of that, discussions on the need for an alternative, institution-independent currency occurred. Due to this reason the first decentralized cryptocurrency Bitcoin was created. The new and not yet explored concept of cryptocurrency changed the previously strictly defined role of money. Currently, with the growth of the cryptocurrency market, the most important regional institutions (e.g. FED, EBA) provide regulatory guidelines of a recommendatory nature. The regulations of these institutions remain significant, reflecting the dominant approach to digital money. Because of this reason, the aim of the study is to identify the factors that determine the difficulties in the legalization process of cryptocurrencies and to investigate the features of the European Union's cryptocurrency regulatory policy. Methods used: analysis of scientific literature and legal documents, systematization, comparison, interpretation and generalization of information. The results of the study show that the European Union has taken active regulatory action with the growing importance of cryptocurrencies in the world. To date, a document regulating the definition of cryptocurrencies has not yet been adopted at Union level, but the adoption of the cryptocurrency regulation proposal presented in 2020 would mean greater clarity and security for cryptocurrency issuers, intermediaries and users.