PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ASPECTS OF CRYPTOCURRENCY IN ELECTRONIC DECLARATIONS

Abstract

Introduction. Electronic declaration in Ukraine is not merely a mechanism for submitting information on the property status of public officials. It also functions as an instrument of public financial control aimed at verifying integrity within the public service. The inclusion of cryptocurrency assets in declarations complicates this control function, as such assets are digital, volatile and not always supported by conventional documentary or registration evidence. Against this background, the decisive issue is not the formal indication of cryptocurrency in a declaration, but the possibility of confirming the declarant’s actual control over a wallet, the date of acquisition, the amount of the asset, its value and the sources of funds used for its acquisition.

Discussion. The purpose of the article is to examine the declaration of cryptocurrency assets as an element of public financial control in Ukraine and to identify the procedural, evidentiary and managerial problems that arise when verifying their existence, ownership, value and good-faith disclosure in an electronic declaration.

Materials and methods. The study is based on Ukrainian legislation on corruption prevention and virtual assets, explanatory and practical materials of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, international documents of the OECD, FATF and the European Union concerning crypto-asset transparency, as well as scholarly works on electronic declaration, risk-based verification of declarations and the legal nature of cryptocurrencies. The research uses the formal legal method to analyse the regulatory framework, the systemic and structural method to consider e-declaration as a sequence of administrative procedures, the comparative method to correlate Ukrainian practice with international approaches, and analytical generalisation to identify the key problems of verifying digital assets.

Results. The article substantiates that cryptocurrency in an electronic declaration should not be treated only as a type of intangible asset, since its control significance depends on the possibility of verification rather than on the formal name of the asset. The study shows that the growing number of declarations containing crypto-assets and the increase in their total declared value place additional pressure on the NACP and require more technically sensitive procedures of logical, arithmetic and full verification. It is argued that adequate verification of cryptocurrency should cover the type of asset, the number of units, the date of acquisition, the value on the acquisition date, the source of funds, the wallet identifier or exchange documents, and digital evidence of actual control. The absence of such data creates the risk that the declaration becomes a formal entry that does not allow the control authority to distinguish a real digital asset from a fictitious or unsubstantiated statement.

Discussion. Further research should focus on developing methodological standards for verifying cryptocurrency assets in declarations, clarifying the minimum evidentiary set required to confirm ownership and value, and adapting risk-based algorithms, blockchain analytics and international exchange of information to the needs of Ukrainian public financial control.