Overview
- The core provisions of Russia’s new crypto law took effect on Sept. 1, 2026, creating a state‑supervised framework for exchanges, brokers, custodians and digital depositories.
- The Bank of Russia has proposed Bitcoin, Ether and Tether’s USDT as the only initially eligible assets for ordinary retail trading, subject to final secondary rules from the regulator.
- Non‑qualified retail investors must pass a suitability test and face a 300,000‑ruble annual purchase cap per intermediary, while qualified investors also require testing but have no equivalent monetary limit.
- Sberbank’s SberCIB projects regulated trading will handle about 3.5–4 trillion rubles (~$46.4 billion) in year one with growth to roughly 7.5 trillion rubles by 2029, yet firms have until July 1, 2027 to register and many users may stay on peer‑to‑peer and offshore platforms.
- The law goes hand in hand with the Sept. 1 digital ruble rollout for connected banks and retailers, and the change formalizes a route for cross‑border crypto settlements while keeping cryptocurrencies banned as domestic payment instruments.