Russia crypto bill heads to final State Duma votes

Russia’s lower house is scheduled to take its final two votes on a broad cryptocurrency bill on July 21, putting the country close to a formal rulebook for digital assets. For everyday crypto investors, the key detail is narrow but important: the bill would allow crypto in foreign trade, while keeping it banned for purchases inside Russia.

The measure, called “On Digital Currency and Digital Rights”, still needs approval from Russia’s Senate and a signature from President Vladimir Putin after the State Duma votes. Anatoly Aksakov, chair of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, expects that process to take about two more weeks. If completed, the law would take effect on September 1.

The original implementation target was July 1, but Russian outlet Kommersant reported that the delay came from coordination problems among government agencies.

What the bill would regulate

The bill would create a licensing system, meaning crypto exchanges, brokers and custodians would need government permission to operate. A custodian is a company that holds crypto for customers, similar to how a bank holds deposits or a brokerage holds securities.

Under the proposal, the Bank of Russia would issue those licenses. It would also have power to block any cryptocurrency it considers a risk to financial stability.

Some major Russian financial firms are already preparing for that structure. VTB and T-Bank have announced plans to create crypto depositories, according to the reporting cited in the legislation coverage.

The rules would not treat every token the same. A cryptocurrency would need market capitalization above 5 trillion rubles, or about $65 billion, plus at least five years of verified trading history on a licensed foreign exchange to be traded legally in Russia. Market capitalization means the total value of all circulating coins of a given cryptocurrency.

Those thresholds currently leave Bitcoin and Ethereum as the main qualifying assets. Alexandra Fedotova, a lawyer at White Stone who has tracked the bill, told Parlamentskaya Gazeta that the Bank of Russia is likely to publish a list of the five or 10 most traded cryptocurrencies on major exchanges. She said BTC and ETH would be included, and that SOL or TON could also appear because of their popularity in Russia.

Investor limits and banned privacy coins

Retail investors would face a yearly purchase limit of 300,000 rubles, about $3,800, through one licensed intermediary. Professional investors would not face that cap.

The bill also draws a hard line around privacy coins, which are cryptocurrencies designed to obscure transaction details or wallet addresses. Fedotova told Parlamentskaya Gazeta that Monero, Zcash and Dash would be excluded because Russian regulators require anti-money laundering checks. Anti-money laundering, or AML, refers to financial controls meant to detect illicit funds and suspicious transactions.

Foreign trade, not domestic payments

The bill would permit cryptocurrency only for international trade. Russian companies could use crypto to pay foreign counterparties, but the ruble would remain the only legal payment method inside Russia.

Kaplan Panesh, deputy chair of the State Duma’s Budget and Taxes Committee, said when the bill passed its first reading in April that lawmakers designed it to preserve the ruble while giving Russian companies a way to pay foreign partners despite sanctions restrictions.

Russia has faced Western sanctions since 2014, with broader penalties after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The European Union moved in February to ban crypto transactions with Russian entities, according to prior reporting cited in the coverage.

Putin signed a separate crypto mining law in August 2024. Hashrate Index ranked Russia as the world’s second-largest Bitcoin producer after the United States in 2026. The new bill would add trading and settlement rules to that mining framework. Unlicensed crypto platforms would face a full ban starting July 1, 2027.

This story draws on original reporting from Decrypt.