Overview
- VTB says it will pilot direct, deliverable crypto trading next year for investors who meet “super-qualified” thresholds of over $1.3 million in assets or more than $650,000 in annual income.
- Bank executives expect the institution to be the first in Russia to offer spot trading, with testing underway and any rollout contingent on final regulatory approval.
- Up to now, Russian banks have been limited to crypto-linked derivatives, though the central bank has recently signaled readiness to regulate broader activity in the sector.
- Kremlin deputy chief of staff Maxim Oreshkin called for classifying industrial crypto mining as an export and for capturing crypto flows in foreign-exchange and balance-of-payments data.
- Authorities have tightened oversight of mining with tax service registration, a registry for hosting providers, corporate tax rates up to 25%, and a household exemption only below 6,000 kWh of monthly power use.