Rubles In, Satoshis Out: Russia's Crypto Law Picks $BTC and $ETH, Boots the Privacy Coins 🚫🥷

Russia's State Duma is set to hold the second and third readings of draft bill No. 1194918-8, titled "On Digital Currency and Digital Rights," on Tuesday, according to Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, as reported by RBC. If approved by the Federation Council and signed by President Vladimir Putin—a process Aksakov expects to take roughly two weeks—the legislation would take effect on September 1, replacing the earlier target of July 1 after coordination bottlenecks between agencies reported by Kommersant.

The bill creates Russia's first comprehensive licensing regime for crypto exchanges, brokers and custodians, with the Bank of Russia acting as the permit-issuing authority and empowered to bar any digital asset it considers a threat to financial stability. To qualify for legal trading in Russia, a cryptocurrency must carry a market capitalization above 5 trillion rubles (roughly $65 billion) and at least five years of verified trading history on a licensed foreign exchange. That threshold currently limits the field to Bitcoin ($BTC) and Ethereum ($ETH). Lawyer Alexandra Fedotova of White Stone told Parlamentskaya Gazeta that the Bank of Russia will likely publish a list of the top five to 10 traded cryptocurrencies and that "these will definitely include BTC and ETH," with SOL or TON possible additions given their popularity in Russia, while everything else is restricted to qualified investors.

Non-qualified investors face a 300,000 ruble ($3,800) annual cap on crypto purchases through a single licensed intermediary and a 100,000 ruble limit on transfers abroad, while qualified investors can transact up to 3 million rubles in purchases and 1 million rubles in cross-border transfers. Privacy-focused assets including Monero ($XMR), Zcash ($ZEC) and Dash are barred outright regardless of investor status. Fedotova said the Bank of Russia explicitly prohibits coins that obscure counterparties: "If you can't build a transaction graph and see where the money came from, such an asset will not pass AML verification" under the law's anti-money laundering requirements.

Major Russian banks are moving ahead regardless of the timeline. VTB and T-Bank have announced plans to build crypto depositories, and Alfa-Bank has tested crypto trading. Aksakov said the law would create legal conditions for cryptocurrency use in Russia and allow companies supplying goods to the country to use crypto assets "without excessive legislative and legal restrictions." The legislation limits legal crypto use to international trade settlements, meaning the ruble remains Russia's only legal payment method for domestic transactions, leaving domestic crypto payments unchanged for retail users.