(Bloomberg) --

Belarus has no plans to tighten its liberal cryptocurrency regulation even as its main economic ally Russia suggested to ban token mining and transactions.

“Restrictive changes to the existing regulatory model are not currently foreseen,” the press service of Hi-Tech Park, the Belarusian crypto-currency regulator, said by email.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko liberalized cryptocurrency use in 2017, allowing individuals to own, mine, and trade digital coins for other tokens or currencies. While paying with cryptocurrencies for goods and services in Belarus is prohibited, companies are allowed to trade in them and create new tokens via residents of Hi-Tech Park.

Belarus is in a close economic and political union with neighboring Russia, whose central bank proposed to outlaw crypto mining and trading. Blockchain data platform Chainalysis placed Belarus in third place in Eastern Europe after Ukraine and Russia in its cryptocurrency adoption index, citing strong peer-to-peer activity. Belarusian individuals don’t have to declare their personal cryptocurrency operations to tax authorities.

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