Russia finalized a draft bill to recast crypto as an investment asset effective July 1, 2026 with full operational rollout through 2027. The draft imposes a 300,000 ruble annual purchase cap for non‑qualified retail investors and requires new retail entrants to pass a mandatory risk awareness test covering volatility, possible total loss, custody exposures, and drawdown scenarios. Trading and custody for retail and institutional flows will be limited to licensed Russian platforms and approved intermediaries, and foreign trading venues will be allowed only under reporting rules that require disclosure of holdings and income and carry escalating penalties for evasion. The draft maintains the ban on domestic crypto payments and explicitly prohibits privacy‑focused coins such as Monero and Zcash. The proposal criminalizes large‑scale or organized unlicensed mining from 2027. The bill establishes a two‑tier investor model that limits asset lists for non‑qualified retail users and subjects professional and institutional participants to suitability checks, ongoing reporting, independent audits, and capital‑market style controls. The draft assigns domestic exchanges to anchor price discovery and liquidity, assigns banks to handle onboarding, KYC, and custody, and identifies national custodians such as Sberbank as potential custody providers. Regulators and lawmakers frame the proposal as a way to pull trading and custody onshore, limit household exposure, open controlled channels for cross‑border settlements, reduce fraud, increase tax capture, and give supervisors data and tools to limit systemic risk. Estimates cited in the draft put crypto transactions involving Russian participants at about $376 billion between mid‑2024 and mid‑2025. The central bank plans to calibrate limits based on early metrics such as cap utilization, test pass rates, and venue liquidity, and enforcement mechanisms in the draft include fines, reporting requirements, and criminal referrals for large violations.
Source: https://web3businessnews.com/policy/russia-crypto-everyday-2026/