Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, plans to build infrastructure for cryptocurrency trading and launch a digital depository by December 1, as Russia moves to bring crypto trading, custody and settlement into its regulated financial system.
According to Interfax, the depository will record customers’ ownership of cryptocurrency and process most transactions outside the underlying blockchain. Sberbank will operate active wallets for customer-initiated deposits, withdrawals and transfers.
The plan follows the Federal Council’s approval of a law regulating cryptocurrency trading through licensed brokers, exchanges, asset managers and depositories.
The framework is set to come into effect on September 1, although rules requiring transactions to pass through licensed intermediaries will apply from July 2027.
Public exchange trading will be limited to cryptocurrencies that meet the Bank of Russia’s liquidity thresholds, including an average market capitalization of over 5 trillion rubles ($64 billion) and an average daily volume over 1 trillion rubles ($12.8 billion) over 2 years.
Qualified investors will be able to access a wider range of assets. Crypto payments for goods and services in Russia remain prohibited.
Sberbank began offering structured bonds tied to bitcoin to qualified investors last year and conducted a bitcoin-backed lending pilot with miner Intelion Data in December.
