Ukraine's Central Bank Won't Back Crypto Bill Cleared for Final Vote

The National Bank of Ukraine said on Nov. 4 it will not support Draft Law No. 10225-d on virtual assets, one day after the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy recommended the bill for adoption in a second reading and as a whole. The central bank warned the text leaves foreign tokens that function as electronic money outside its supervisory reach and creates risks to monetary sovereignty.

The NBU said it received the final draft only late the evening before the committee vote and that the process "was not sufficiently transparent." Deputy Governor Oleksii Shaban raised the bank's objections at the committee meeting, but the format did not allow a full debate, the NBU said.

Ukraine legalized a framework for virtual assets in 2022. The new bill aims to bring that market under detailed rules modeled on the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, MiCA, and on International Monetary Fund recommendations. The NBU said it supports that direction in principle.

What risks does the NBU flag?

The bank's public case rests on three objections.

• Foreign tokens without matching supervision. The draft would admit foreign tokens to Ukraine even when they function as electronic money but face no comparable oversight in their home jurisdictions. The NBU said that threatens monetary sovereignty, monetary-policy transmission, payment infrastructure and financial stability. It wants the same authority it holds over domestic tokens: the power to assess foreign assets and restrict their circulation in Ukraine when needed.
• Regulatory arbitrage. Simplified admission of foreign virtual assets must not let them sidestep rules applied to comparable Ukrainian assets. Without parity, market segments could grow outside adequate oversight, the bank warned.
• Licensing concentration. The NBU flagged monopolization and corruption risks in how the National Securities and Stock Market Commission would authorize trading-platform operators. The bank initially opposed numerical caps, then accepted a compromise limiting the first wave to three legal persons chosen by competitive selection. The final draft drops a clear five-year cap and leaves the operator count to the commission's discretion without sufficient antitrust safeguards, the NBU said.

What happens next?

The committee's Nov. 4 recommendation does not enact the law. A final Verkhovna Rada vote is expected later in November, according to Interfax Ukraine. If adopted, the rules would take effect on July 1, 2027, splitting supervision between the NBU and the securities commission.

Under the committee version, personal income from virtual-asset trades would fall under Ukraine's standard personal income tax, with a reduced 5% rate through the end of 2028 for assets acquired before the law takes effect. Crypto-to-crypto exchanges would not be taxed, and virtual-asset deals would sit outside VAT.

The dispute arrives as Ukrainian lawmakers debate how deeply digital assets should sit in state finance. Parliament last year introduced a separate bill that would let the NBU hold virtual assets, including bitcoin, in its foreign-exchange and gold reserves — a permission the bank would not be obliged to use.

"The development of the virtual asset market and the protection of monetary and financial stability are not mutually exclusive," the NBU said in its statement. It urged members of parliament to refine the draft with all parties to the process and said it remains ready to cooperate.

The test now is whether lawmakers reopen the foreign-token and licensing clauses before the floor vote, or pass the committee text and leave the central bank outside a framework it helped draft. With the July 1, 2027 start date written into the bill, any renegotiation in November narrows the transition window for platforms preparing to operate under the new regime.