Ukrainian Company Uses Bitcoin for its Charter Capital

overviews
21.03.2016

Ukrainian legal firm Axon Partners focused on work with IT industry used Bitcoin to form its charter capital. The company was founded when IT and media partner at Juscutum, Dmitri Gadomski, abandoned the company to start his own business.

Axon Partners became the country’s first company to form its charter capital completely in Bitcoin.

Juscutum became famous in Ukraine back in 2012, when it represented the country’s most popular file sharing service EX.ua in a court hearing concerning its blocking. Since then the company’s lawyers participated in many high profile cases, struggle with illegal searches at local IT companies’ offices, and industry-wide initiatives.

“There are miracles if we use trust to replace assets and assets management. A team of three people works with pleasure and performs due diligence in a week, while earlier it took five people to do the same in a month. And, mind you, there are no “sorry, dear, we’ll have to work at night and weekend,” Gadomski told ain.ua.

Axon Partners uses Zappos approach to organize the work process without classical hierarchical structure. However, in addition to that, the company used Bitcoin to establish its charter capital, which is a novelty for Ukraine and probably for majority of other countries around the globe.

Nazar Polyvka, partner at Axon Partners said Bitcoin is not withdrawn from civil transactions, is an aggregate of information, and has a monetary value, and for that reason the company saw no problem in using it to establish its charter capital.

According to the Civil Code of Ukraine, objects of civil rights include information and other substantial and non-substantial values.

“The most interesting thing is that we didn’t have to persuade the government registrars. There were no questions to the charter, or to the minutes of meeting, where we explicitly stated the charter capital was to be formed in Bitcoin. The registrar, possibly without knowing it, became a co-creator of a very interesting precedent with probably profound consequence for the whole Ukrainian bitcoin industry,” Polyvka said in interview to Interfax.

The company’s founder Dmitri Gadomski says that the charter capital itself is quite small, and comprises a bit less than 1 BTC. However, Gadomski stresses that the very opportunity of forming charter capital with Bitcoin is way more important.

“The thing is about the fact, not the quantity. Next, we’ll use blockchain to build corporate structure. Most likely, we’ll try in Ukraine, but just to test the new laws, as we expect amendments to LLC regulation to be enacted,” he told ForkLog.

Certainly, the lawyers not only use Bitcoin for their charter capital, but also accept the cryptocurrency as a payment for the services rendered.

“We had started accepting bitcoins long before we became Axon Partners. There were not as much of those willing to do that, though. Now our entire charter is in Bitcoin. At least it means we’ve got a bitcoin wallet. We accept e-money and bitcoins. We could accept other cryptocurrencies, if it’s more convenient for a client. There’s no problem in opening a wallet and linking it to our ERP system. And I see no problem in doing that. Future always comes faster than one expects. Nobody knows if there’s any fiat in the future,” Gadomski said.

However, there are some obstacles in using Bitcoin on equal terms with fiat in Ukraine.

“Accepting bitcoins is difficult now, as they are neither money, nor property. So, to accept bitcoins as a payment, you need an individual entrepreneur, not to cash it, but just because legally individual entrepreneurs don’t have to keep records of expenses. This is an incredibly convenient quasi-legal person for digital businesses, and not just because of 5% tax. Our long time client, founder of KUNA Bitcoin Agency Mike Chobanyan works with bitcoins, and recently raised money with crowdfunding for Ukraine’s first bitcoin exchange. We understand that buying/selling bitcoins is in grey zone for most officials. Our decision to establish charter capital in Bitcoin is a kind of solidarity with the client,” Gadomski said.

He also noted that, notwithstanding evident progress in Bitcoin acceptance in Ukraine, the country’s regulator remains cautious about cryptocurrency.

“Ukraine is really not friendly to Bitcoin and electronic money. Last year, the National Bank published a letter stating that Bitcoin usage is terrorism at the inside, and betrayal of Christian values at the outside. There was no legal basis whatsoever for this position, yet there might have been some fear of the unknown. By the end of the year everybody felt the National Bank relented. It never affected the official position, however, the regulator’s spokespersons at seminars, meetings and conferences became way more constructive,” he said.

Earlier, using Bitcoin to establish a company’s charter capital was a purely theoretical concept. In his recent article for ForkLog, Nestor Dubnevych, lawyer at law firm Bitlex, noted:

“In Ukraine, the law on joint stock companies allows using non-material assets with monetary value to pay for placed shares.”

Speaking about benefits of organizing charter capital in Bitcoin, Dubnevych said:

“If you suffer from yet another raid by authorities, you’ll still have the edge in the form of bitcoins in your charter capital. You may use it to settle with counterparties to earlier liabilities.”

Ukraine keeps the lead as Eastern Europe’s leader in financial innovations. The country’s biggest bank, PrivatBank, offers bitcoin exchange services, while several blockchain-based projects in public management are being tested to be later implemented on the nation-wide scale, including state property auction and electronic voting systems.

Found a typo? Highlight text and press CTRL+ENTER

Subscribe to our Newsletter

<

Related posts

Tags: , , , ,