Russia’s biggest banks and stock exchanges, often sanctioned, are going to tap into crypto profits next month, with regulated coin trading set to commence on the first day of December.
Small crypto firms are finding it hard to meet Moscow’s strict new requirements while foreign platforms keep exiting its “sovereign” market, which aims to account for 50 billion rubles in daily turnover.
Sberbank and MOEX to begin crypto trading on December 1
Russia is preparing for the launch of legal crypto trading less than a month from now, after its government legalized the business this past summer.
Plans announced earlier this year are now coming to fruition and well-established financial players are gearing up to offer Russians’ regulated access to digital assets.
Giants like Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender, and the Moscow Exchange (MOEX), the leading stock market in the country, will be among the first to do so, both have indicated.
At the end of October, MOEX confirmed it aims to begin trading coins on December 1. As soon as its morning session starts, investors will be able to buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether.
BTC, ETH and the U.S.-dollar pegged stablecoin USDT, the cryptos with the largest market cap, remain the only three approved even for non-qualified retail investors. The list may be expanded in the future.
Speaking during a recent conference in the Russian capital, and quoted by the business news outlet RBC, the exchange’s Senior Managing Director for Sales and Business Development Boris Blokhin elaborated:
“We are starting with three key coins. We plan to offer order-book trading, as well as swap transactions. This is what we intend to roll out by the end of this year.”
The launch date was first announced in mid-September by Sergey Shvetsov, chairman of the Supervisory Board of MOEX and confirmed by Blokhin in early October, when trials were already underway.
Around the same time, Russia’s second-largest securities exchange, St. Petersburg’s SPB, also unveiled its preparations to host cryptocurrency trading by the end of 2026.
Both platforms have been facilitating investment in crypto derivatives since this was permitted by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) in May 2025, through indices and futures contracts.
Meanwhile, the biggest Russian banks have been readying themselves for crypto trading as well. The majority state-owned behemoth Sberbank revealed it’s going to launch a dedicated service on December 1, too.
The latter will allow clients to buy, sell, deposit and withdraw cryptocurrencies, its press service detailed, quoted by the business daily Kommersant on October 8, adding it was testing transactions with several popular coins.
According to an estimate produced by the Russian Ministry of Finance, around 20 million Russians currently own more than $44 billion worth of cryptocurrencies with the volume of their transactions averaging around 50 billion rubles a day (nearly $600 million), as reported by Cryptopolitan.
Russia is building a “closed circuit” cryptocurrency market
The Russian Federation legalized crypto-related activities with the law “On digital currencies and digital rights,” which entered into force on September 1, following its adoption in parliament and President Putin’s signature .
Since then, more than 20 organizations have been registered by the Bank of Russia to operate as cryptocurrency exchanges and custodians, including VTB – the country’s second-largest credit institution.
Many of the entities licensed by the CBR have been subject to restrictions over their roles in Russian attempts to circumvent sanctions punishing the invasion of Ukraine, using either fiat or crypto channels.
The approval process has been accompanied by a crackdown on small crypto exchange offices, allegedly involved in illegal activities, while experts have warned even legitimate existing participants in the market won’t be able to meet certain regulatory requirements .
Others, like Kirill Pistsov who heads product development at Finam, one of Russia’s oldest financial brokers, have also argued that banks are better positioned to weather crypto market declines than specialized platforms as they generate revenue through a variety of other products.
By all indications, Putin’s Russia is trying to build what some describe as a “sovereign” crypto infrastructure under strict government control and continue to exploit digital assets for cross-border trade and sanctions evasion, while limiting access for ordinary Russians .
Industry watchers have previously expressed fears that Moscow is actually creating a “ closed crypto circuit ” dominated by sanctioned players that may result into a speculative market for tainted coins, which several foreign crypto exchanges have recently exited .
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