The article analyzes the legal framework for taxes and other problems deriving from the digitalization of economic, including the use of cryptocurrencies. The authors postulate the necessity of legal framework in such a modern challenge to international cooperation between states. The most interesting work, from the lawmakers’ point of view, took place in the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union. The authors conclude that many European and Asian countries have in their national law some provisions related to the use and taxation of cryptocurrencies. The level of development of such regulation varies from state to state. One of the conclusions was the establishment of the fact that the EU today is one of the avant-gardes in the international community for using cryptocurrencies. Another important conclusion is that in the territory of the EAEU this process is only at the very beginning of its inception, although some countries have gone far enough to create a legal framework for the use of cryptocurrency. As part of a study on the taxation aspects, the authors set themselves the goal of understanding the current problems in this area. Methods The methodological basis of the study involves a combination of general scientific (dialectical, historical, inductive, deductive, analytical, synthetic) and private scientific methods (formal-legal, comparative-legal, interpretative, statistical, procedural and dynamic). © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020.