Cryptocurrency and blockchain associations from Russia, China and South Korea are going to file a class action against internet corporations banning crypto ads. The lawsuit will challenge restrictions imposed by Facebook, Google, Twitter and Yandex. A decision to take the matter to court in the US has been made at a crypto conference in Moscow.
The most popular social network Facebook and the largest global search engine Google banned crypto ads in January and in March respectively. Russian media have reported about a similar decision by the biggest search engine in the country – Yandex. But the company has not official confirmed that measure.
This Monday Twitter announced it would ban advertising of initial coin offerings and token sales starting on Tuesday, March 27. It has been reported that another social media platform, Snapchat, has also banned advertisements of ICOs.
The simultaneous refusal to advertise cryptocurrencies could testify that there was a cartel collusion, said RACIB’s president Yuri Pripachkin.
«We think these four companies are using their monopoly power and have colluded to manipulate the market», – he added.
Two laws legalizing blockchain technologies, mining, cryptocurrencies and coin offerings have been introduced in the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament. They will be adopted in June or July this year, Anatoliy Aksakov, head of the parliamentary Financial Market Committee, said during the BlockchainRF-2018 congress.
Cryptocurrency miners will be obliged to register as individual entrepreneurs or legal entities under the new regulations, Aksakov told participants at the conference. He also said that mining businesses will enjoy tax breaks for a period of two years after the adoption of the digital economy legislation.
