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- The Duma’s second and third readings of the pending cryptocurrency bill are scheduled for July 21; If approved, the law will go into effect on September 1.
- The bill explicitly allows cryptocurrencies for international trade only, giving Russian companies a legal mechanism to route payments outside Western banking channels.
- Domestic cryptocurrency payments are still prohibited.
Russia’s Duma, the lower house of its legislature, will hold its final two votes on the country’s first comprehensive cryptocurrency law on Tuesday.
The draft law is titled “About digital currency and digital rights“It still needs the approval of the Senate and the signature of Russian President Vladimir Putin afterward, a process that Anatoly Aksakov, head of the Duma Committee on Financial Markets, expects to take another two weeks. The law will then enter into force on September 1.
The original target was July 1, but the delay came due to coordination bottlenecks between government agencies, the Russian outlet reports Kommersant.
What creates the bill
The legislation sets up a licensing regime – a government-issued permit system – for cryptocurrency exchanges, brokers and custodians (companies that store cryptocurrencies on your behalf, in the same way a bank holds cash). The Bank of Russia becomes the authority issuing these permits and can ban any cryptocurrency that it considers a threat to financial stability.
Major financial institutions are not waiting: VTB and T-Bank have already announced plans to build cryptocurrency warehouses.
Not every currency qualifies. To trade legally in Russia, a cryptocurrency needs to have a market capitalization (the total value of all currencies in circulation) of more than 5 trillion rubles — about $65 billion — and at least five years from a certified trading date on a licensed foreign exchange.
This currently narrows the field to two: Bitcoin and Ethereum. Alexandra Fedotova, a lawyer at White Stone who has been following the legislation, told a Russian outlet Parliamentskaya Gazeta The Bank of Russia is likely to release a list of the top five or ten cryptocurrencies traded on major exchanges.
“These will definitely include BTC and ETH,” she said. “SOL or TON will probably be added, given their popularity in Russia. Everything else is for qualified investors only.”
Ordinary investors — people without professional credentials — face an annual purchase limit of 300,000 rubles (about $3,800) through a single licensed broker. Professional investors face no such limit – but even they cannot buy privacy coins (cryptocurrencies designed to hide transaction data and wallet addresses). Monero (XMR), Zcash (ZEC), and Dash have been fully released.
“The Central Bank of Russia directly states: You cannot buy coins that hide the recipients,” Fedotova said. “If you can’t create a transaction graph and know where the funds are coming from, that asset won’t pass the anti-money laundering check” – AML (Anti-Money Laundering) are the financial checks that every licensed platform must run on transactions under the new framework.
“Buying cryptocurrencies” and “using cryptocurrencies” are not the same thing
If you’re of Russian descent, the new legislation probably won’t give you much to celebrate: you can still buy anything with cryptocurrencies within Russia.
The law allows the use of digital currencies only for international trade, where Russian companies pay their foreign partners in Bitcoin to route transactions outside Western banking channels. The ruble remains Russia’s only legal payment at home.
Kaplan Panich, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Budget and Taxation, explained when the bill was passed First reading in AprilLawmakers designed the bill with the preservation of the Russian ruble in mind: “This allows Russian companies to use cryptocurrency to pay foreign counterparties, circumventing sanctions restrictions.”
Russia has been under Western sanctions since 2014, with much tougher sanctions following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The European Union moved in February Ban all cryptocurrency transactions with Russian entities. Moscow continued to legislate.
Putin Signed the Cryptocurrency Mining Law in Russia In August 2024, making Russia the second Bitcoin producer in the world after the United States according to Hashrate Index, 2026. The new draft law places trading and settlement rules on top of all that, complementing the regulatory picture that Moscow has been building since the first sanctions were imposed.
Unlicensed platforms face a complete ban starting July 1, 2027.
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