Russia's State Duma, the lower house of its legislative body, takes its final two votes on the country's first comprehensive cryptocurrency law on Tuesday.
What the bill createsThe legislation sets up a licensing regime—a government-issued permit system—for crypto exchanges, brokers, and custodians (companies that store cryptocurrency on your behalf, the way a bank holds cash). The Bank of Russia becomes the authority issuing those permits and can bar any cryptocurrency it deems a threat to financial stability.
Major financial institutions aren't waiting: VTB and T-Bank have already announced plans to build crypto depositories.
Not every coin qualifies. To trade legally in Russia, a cryptocurrency needs a market capitalization (the total value of all coins in circulation) above 5 trillion rubles—roughly $65 billion—and at least five years of verified trading history on a licensed foreign exchange.
"These will definitely include BTC and ETH," she said. "Possibly SOL or TON may be added, given their popularity in Russia. Everything else is only for qualified investors."
Regular investors—people without professional credentials—face an annual purchase cap of 300,000 rubles (about $3,800) through a single licensed intermediary. Professional investors face no such limit—but even they cannot buy privacy coins (cryptocurrencies engineered to hide transaction data and wallet addresses). Monero (XMR), Zcash (ZEC), and Dash are out entirely.
"The CBR directly states: you cannot buy coins that hide recipients," Fedotova said. "If you can't build a transaction graph and see where the money came from, such an asset will not pass AML verification"—AML (anti-money laundering) being the financial checks every licensed platform must run on transactions under the new framework.
“Buy crypto” and “use crypto” are not the same thingIf you’re a Russian degen, the new legislation likely doesn’t give you much to celebrate: You still cannot buy anything with crypto inside Russia.
The law permits cryptocurrency only for international trade—Russian companies paying foreign partners in Bitcoin to route transactions outside Western banking channels. The ruble stays Russia's only legal payment at home.
Unlicensed platforms face a full ban starting July 1, 2027.
