Overview
- State Duma financial markets chair Anatoly Aksakov said cryptocurrencies will never be treated as money in Russia and that all domestic payments must be in rubles.
- Russia’s 2020 digital assets law underpins the ban on crypto payments by classifying digital currencies as property rather than legal tender.
- The Bank of Russia maintains hard-line opposition to private-crypto payments and continues testing a central bank digital currency designed to operate alongside cash and non‑cash rubles.
- Authorities permit narrowly scoped use of crypto in cross-border settlements under an experimental legal regime developed as an alternative to restricted international payment rails.
- Officials support regulated mining and allow crypto investment products through financial institutions, yet banks are barred from processing payments in digital currencies.