District justice: Roskomnadzor continues to block cryptocurrency sites

Another round of blocking of cryptocurrency sites took place in Russia, including the Bits.media forum. By decisionNyandomsky district court in the Arkhangelsk region blocked five more resources.

Group blocking of sites about cryptocurrencies inRussia began in 2015, and since then several more such cases have been added every year. The basis for them was a letter from the Bank of Russia published in January 2014. However, the first case of illegal blocking of cryptocurrency sites was won with the participation of Bits.media. In 2016-2017, several popular services, mainly exchanges, were blocked. 2019 was marked by the blocking of news sites and monitoring of exchangers by Bestchange, which was also able to get the court decision overturned.

The beginning of 2020 was no exception, and alreadybeginning of March there are two cases. The first of these was the blocking of five sites: btcphone.ru, nicechange.org, alfatop.me, bitokk.com and prostocoin.com. The decision was made on February 4 by the Nyandoma District Court of the Arkhangelsk Region, and the plaintiff was Assistant Prosecutor of the Nyandoma District Kondratov A.A. On March 5, the above sites were included in the Roskomnadzor register.

On the same day, some users of the bits forum.media began to complain about the unavailability of the resource. As a result of the research, it was possible to find out that the forum was included in the “black list” at the request of the Federal Tax Service more than two years ago due to a topic about online casinos, created and abandoned a year earlier, in 2016.

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The forum topic that caused the ban is alreadydeleted, and now there is a dialogue with Roskomnadzor on removing the forum from the registry. At the same time, some providers (obviously using DPI) were able to restrict access to a specific page, but most block access to the entire site. Interestingly, providers are interested in blocking sites as quickly as possible, as they will be subject to regulatory sanctions for failure to comply with the order. But lifting the ban can last several months, since in this case no punishment is provided.

Website owner: btcphone.ru is already planning to challenge another illegal blocking. Perhaps he will be joined by the owners of other blocked resources and other members of the community, since such “cases” are already becoming a trend, despite the fact that when considered by higher authorities, all of them are recognized as illegal.

It is impossible not to notice that most cases of blocking cryptocurrency sites have a number of common signs:

1. No victims.Most of the claims are filed on the initiative of district prosecutors, and in different regions (St. Petersburg, Sverdlovsk, Omsk, and now Arkhangelsk region). They “protect” not specific people, but an “indefinite circle of people,” while the decision of the district court is made “on behalf of the Russian Federation” and leads to a ban on access to sites throughout the country.
2. No violation of laws.Plaintiffs-prosecutors usually cite arguments from the above-mentioned information letter of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation about money surrogates, lack of regulation of cryptocurrencies, absence of issuers, etc. However, none of the current Russian laws defines the concept of cryptocurrencies, equates them to money surrogates, or prohibits operations with them, much less posting information about them. That is why decisions stamped by district courts are just as easily overturned in the future.
3. Random selection of sites to block.The basis for the claim is not statements from victims or any systematic research, but “monitoring of the Internet,” carried out by the same employees of the prosecutor’s office. At the same time, there is no logic in the selection of “respondent” sites: out of thousands of Russian-language sites and services about cryptocurrencies, no more than 5-10 are usually selected, of very different directions and in no way related to each other. Obviously, their list is determined only by search results and the personal sympathies of the “researchers.”

Of course, the community does not ignoreongoing pressure from the authorities &#8212; however, in most cases, it has no legal basis. On the one hand, precedents for lifting blocking are multiplying and this allows us to hope that in the future even district courts in the regions will take them into account. On the other hand, “malicious cryptocurrencies” are organizing, looking for technical methods of counteraction and thinking about moving to decentralized services, which are much more difficult to block.

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