Digital development of complementary currency markets: legislative aspects

The purpose of the research. The legal aspect requires a clear understanding, and can be considered one of the determining factors of the success in realizing complementary currency (CC) projects, because many of them have a lot questions in the legislative framework. In this regard, the author finds it expedient to find out to what extent some countries are more sympathetic to such currency initiatives than others. To this end, the author confines himself to a relatively representative sample of five countries—France, Great Britain, Canada, Italy and Russia—in terms of the degree of liberality to the СС. The main measure for selecting countries were the degree of popularity of the СС-projects in the countries and the availability of the necessary information. In the context of the current paradigm of digitalization of financial markets in each country, the author assessed the achieved level of «digitization» of the projects under study.

Results. As a result of the conducted research, the author comes to the conclusion that there are no separate laws concerning СС projects in the system of legislations of different countries. It is possible to determine the position of a country in this area only by examining the sub-items of currency legislation, securities laws, as well as laws related to banking activities. At the same time, in countries that are liberal to СС projects, there are separate communities that support such initiatives and contribute to their emergence and development, while regulating their appeal.