The G7 ambassadors’ support group for Ukraine said on Saturday 7 November that it “takes note” of the National Bank of Ukraine’s refusal to back Ukraine’s crypto law, Interfax-Ukraine reported that evening. The bill in question, No. 10225-d, was recommended for a second reading and final adoption by the Rada’s finance committee on 4 November with 20 votes, and the central bank (NBU) said that same evening that it cannot support the text in its current form. A plenary vote is expected in November. No date has been set.
The statement itself is not new: it went out on the bank’s Telegram channel and website on the evening of 4 November. What changed on Saturday is that the diplomats who coordinate Western support for Ukraine chose to comment on a domestic quarrel over a crypto bill. According to Interfax-Ukraine, the group wrote on X that ensuring “the financial stability, transparency and independence of the NBU remains extremely important” (Coindaro’s translation from Ukrainian), for Ukraine’s economic resilience and for the effect of international support.
That is a careful sentence. It does not ask the Rada to delay the vote, and it does not endorse any of the NBU’s three objections by name. But it puts central bank independence on the record weeks before a vote the central bank opposes.
What the Rada finance committee approved on 4 November
The Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, chaired by Danylo Hetmantsev, backed the reworked bill on Wednesday 4 November. Dev.ua reported that 20 members voted in favour. MP Yaroslav Zhelezniak, who led the working group that wrote the second-reading text, said on Telegram that the clean text runs to 264 pages and the comparison table to 1,301 pages, after three years of work. “The crypto market will finally be regulated,” he wrote (Coindaro’s translation).
Under the committee text, the law would take effect on 1 July 2027. The National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC) becomes the main regulator of the virtual asset market. The NBU keeps supervision of tokens that work as electronic money and of currency matters. Exchanges, custodians and other service providers would need an authorisation, client assets would have to be held apart from the company’s own, and anti-money-laundering checks would be tightened. Hetmantsev singled out consumer protection as an important part of the bill.
The structure follows the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation: one regime for most crypto-assets under a market supervisor, and a separate one for currency-pegged tokens under the monetary authority. Our explainer on how MiCA works in the EU covers that split in detail.
Ukraine crypto law: why the central bank says it cannot support it
Ukraine’s central bank did not attack the idea of a legal crypto market. It said it supports legalisation built on MiCA and on recommendations from the International Monetary Fund. “The development of the virtual asset market and the protection of monetary and financial stability are not mutually exclusive,” the bank said, in the English wording quoted by Bitcoin Magazine. Its problem is with three provisions of the final text, which it says leave serious risks unaddressed.
Foreign tokens outside the NBU’s reach
The first and widest objection concerns what the NBU calls foreign tokens that function as e-money. In the bank’s Ukrainian wording, quoted by Ekonomichna Pravda, these are foreign tokens “that can in effect perform the functions of electronic money” (Coindaro’s translation). The committee text would let them into the Ukrainian market without supervision in their home country that matches what Ukraine requires, the NBU says. It sees a threat to monetary sovereignty, monetary policy, the payment infrastructure and financial stability, and wants the power to assess the risks of such foreign tokens and, where needed, to restrict their circulation in Ukraine, the same power the bill gives it over tokens issued at home.
A shortcut for foreign assets
The second objection is about regulatory arbitrage. The bill sets a simplified procedure for admitting foreign virtual assets to Ukrainian platforms. The NBU says that procedure must not let them avoid requirements that apply to comparable Ukrainian assets, or local issuers would face stricter rules than foreign ones selling to the same customers.
No limit on licensed trading platforms
The third is about who gets to run a trading platform. According to Interfax-Ukraine’s account of the NBU statement, the central bank had accepted a compromise proposed by the NSSMC: three legal entities at the first stage, chosen by competition. The final text sets no clear number for the first five years and leaves the choice to the NSSMC. The NBU says that, without safeguards against restricted competition, this creates a risk of monopoly and corruption in the authorisation of platforms.
What “foreign tokens that function as e-money” means for stablecoin users
Crypto media summed up the first objection as a fight over stablecoins, and that is the practical effect. Under MiCA, an e-money token is a crypto-asset that holds a stable value by reference to one official currency. Dollar and euro stablecoins redeemable one for one, such as Circle’s USDC or Tether’s USDT, fall in that family; our beginner’s guide to stablecoins explains how they are backed. The NBU did not name any token in its statement.
If a large share of payments and savings moves into a token issued abroad and pegged to the dollar, the local currency carries less of the economy, and decisions on interest rates or capital flows reach fewer people. A foreign issuer also answers to a foreign supervisor, or to none. The EU answered that question by requiring issuers of e-money tokens offered to the public in the Union to be authorised there, and ESMA has asked platforms to deal with tokens that are not MiCA-compliant (see our page on the ESMA deadline for non-MiCA stablecoins).
Ukraine’s central bank is not alone in drawing that line. On 7 November Nigeria’s central bank demanded a local licence for every dollar token under its new stablecoin rules. Whether the NBU gets a similar power depends on amendments before the final vote.
A final text the NBU got the evening before the committee vote
The central bank also complained about the process. It said it received the final version recommended by the committee only late in the evening before the committee meeting, and that several agreements reached in the working group were not in it. Deputy Governor Oleksii Shaban raised the bank’s concerns at the meeting itself, Ekonomichna Pravda and Bitcoin Magazine reported, but the format did not allow a full expert discussion.
In its words, ignoring its principal remarks makes it impossible to support the bill in its current form. It asked MPs to revise it together with all the parties involved and said it was ready to keep working on the text.
Ukraine crypto tax under the committee text: gains only, 5% for coins already held
Several reports of the committee text agree on the outline of the tax chapter. Income tax would apply only to the gain, the sale price minus the purchase price, as for securities. Swapping one virtual asset for another would not be taxed. Crypto operations would not be subject to VAT. A gain of up to one minimum wage would be exempt.
Assets already held when the law takes effect would get a reduced personal income tax rate of 5% until the end of 2028, Dev.ua and Bitcoin Magazine reported. Other gains would be taxed at the standard personal income tax rate. That is a different deal from the text passed at first reading in September 2025, which set a general rate of 18% plus 5% and a 5% rate only in the first year after a conversion into fiat money, Forbes Ukraine reported at the time.
Greece, inside the EU, chose a different route on tax: it passed a 10% crypto tax from 2027 on 6 November.
How the bill got to a November vote
Bill 10225 was registered in the Rada in November 2023. The “-d” suffix marks a reworked version of the original bill.
| Date | Step | Source |
|---|---|---|
| November 2023 | Bill 10225 registered in the Rada | Ekonomichna Pravda |
| 3 September 2025 | First reading of bill 10225 passed with 246 votes | Forbes Ukraine |
| 4 November 2026 | Finance committee recommends second reading and adoption, 20 votes | Dev.ua, Interfax-Ukraine |
| 4 November 2026, evening | NBU says it cannot support bill 10225-d in its current form | NBU via Interfax-Ukraine |
| 7 November 2026 | G7 ambassadors’ support group “takes note” of the NBU position | Interfax-Ukraine |
| November 2026 | Second reading and final vote planned, no date set | Interfax-Ukraine, Dev.ua |
| 1 July 2027 | Planned entry into force | Dev.ua, Interfax-Ukraine |
| End of 2028 | End of the 5% rate for assets held before the law | Interfax-Ukraine, Dev.ua |
What to watch before the plenary vote
The Rada needs 226 votes out of 450 to adopt the law as a whole. The first reading drew 246, a thin margin to defend with the central bank opposed and the G7 group on record about its independence.
Three questions remain open. Will Hetmantsev and Zhelezniak reopen the text to give the NBU a power over foreign e-money tokens, or a cap on platform licences, before it reaches the floor? The NSSMC, which would become the main regulator, has not answered the NBU’s objections in public since 4 November. And neither the committee nor the Rada has published a date.
Even if the law passes this month, nothing changes for users before 1 July 2027, and the President must still sign it.