Russia Opens Crypto to 110 Million People: Sberbank and VTB to Sell Bitcoin Under New Law

Russia Just Put Crypto Inside Its Banking System

On Thursday, the Bank of Russia quietly added a 17th company, Prosto LLC, to its official register of crypto exchange providers. It sounds bureaucratic. It isn't. That register, which did not exist three weeks ago, now controls who can legally sell cryptocurrency to ordinary Russians — and the names on it tell the whole story: Sberbank and VTB, the two giant state-controlled banks that sit at the center of Russian finance, are both cleared to trade crypto and custody client holdings.

VTB plans to open crypto trading to retail investors through its VTB My Investments app as soon as November. Sberbank is targeting December 1, putting Bitcoin, Ether and USDT in front of up to 110.6 million retail clients — an addressable market larger than the entire population of most crypto-friendly countries. Russia, long associated with crackdowns on digital assets, is now building the largest state-supervised retail crypto market outside the United States.

This is the single biggest structural change in Russia's crypto history, and it matters for global crypto markets for one simple reason: a sovereign financial system with an estimated $44 billion in existing Russian crypto holdings is about to get legal, bank-grade on-ramps. Here is exactly what the new law allows, what it bans, and what it means for Bitcoin.

What Changed: The Law That Ended the Gray Zone

Russia's law "On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights," signed by President Vladimir Putin in August, took effect on September 1 and brings crypto trading inside the country's regulated financial system for the first time, according to DL News. The central bank opened two official registers on October 6: one for crypto exchange providers and one for digital depositories, the firms that record who owns which coins.

On day one, the exchange register held just four members: VTB, T-Invest Lab, Zefir and Sistema-Crypto. Three weeks later it has 17, with Sberbank joining on October 12 per Interfax reporting. The depository register now has eight members. Holding both statuses — as Sberbank and VTB do — lets a bank buy and sell crypto in its own name and keep the ownership records of its clients' holdings, the central bank explained.

The distinction matters structurally. Exchange providers can trade digital currencies for their own account outside organized venues, while depositories record and transfer the assets and give clients access to the addresses where they are held. In practice, Sberbank and VTB can run a vertically integrated crypto brokerage inside the apps their customers already use — SberBank Online, SberInvestments, SberBusiness — rather than building standalone crypto products. Boris Blokhin, senior managing director of the Moscow Exchange, said on October 8 that the exchange plans to enable crypto trading from the same December 1 date.

How Retail Crypto Trading Will Actually Work

The new framework is tiered, and the tiers are designed to keep the system conservative at launch:

• Eligible assets: Non-qualified retail investors can buy only Bitcoin, Ether and USDT. Not altcoins, not memecoins — the three deepest, most liquid assets. If you are new to the asset itself, our beginner's guide to how Bitcoin works explains why it anchors every regulated crypto market.
• Annual cap: Each approved intermediary can sell electronic assets to each non-qualified investor up to 300,000 rubles a year — roughly $3,500 to $3,600 depending on the exchange rate. The cap applies per intermediary, so using multiple registered brokers raises a client's total access.
• Knowledge test: Every buyer must pass a test before trading, confirming they understand the risks. Qualified investors take the test too, but face no annual purchase cap.
• Custody model: Assets are held through licensed digital depositories. VTB's broker already carried out its first stablecoin deals for corporate clients on October 6, settling them through accounts at its new digital depository — proof the plumbing works before retail launch.
• Cross-border use: The framework explicitly permits cryptocurrency for cross-border settlements by exporters and importers, an institutional use case that goes far beyond domestic investing.

The Scale: $46 Billion in Year One — and Sberbank Calls That Conservative

Sberbank Deputy Chairman Anatoly Popov told TASS that first-year Russian crypto trading could reach about 4 trillion rubles — roughly $46 billion — and he described that projection as conservative. The bank's internal horizon points to around 7.5 trillion rubles, near $87 billion, by 2029.

Those numbers need context. Central bank data puts existing Russian crypto holdings at about $44 billion as of September. If the new rails capture even a fraction of that latent demand through regulated channels, Russia would immediately rank among the world's largest legal retail crypto markets by volume. For comparison, US spot Bitcoin ETFs absorbed roughly $1 billion of net inflows over three trading sessions in the third week of October — meaningful, but spread across the deepest market on earth. A fresh $46 billion corridor in a market that currently trades almost entirely over-the-counter would be a material demand addition.

Sberbank also signaled what comes next: Popov said in August that the bank wants to accept Bitcoin, Ether and Tether as loan collateral once the central bank permits those assets for public circulation — which would extend the business from trading into lending. Russia's biggest bank becoming a crypto lender is the kind of second-order development that turns a trading license into balance-sheet integration.

What Is Still Banned — and It Is a Lot

Russia's opening is tightly fenced. Understanding the fences matters because they reshape behavior for millions of existing crypto users:

• P2P transfers are banned. The new law forbids transfers of digital currency between individuals and transfers to non-custodial wallets. "No, transfers of digital currency between individuals are not permitted under Part 5 of Article 31 of Federal Law No. 282-FZ," the central bank said in a Q&A on its website. Some direct deals remain allowed only until July 1, 2027 — the deadline that turns the registered-intermediary system from an advantage into a legal requirement. We covered the full mechanics of that ban here.
• Payments for goods are still illegal. Sberbank clients will be able to buy Bitcoin but cannot spend it at home. Crypto remains an investment and settlement asset, not money, in the eyes of Russian law.
• Self-custody is effectively excluded. Because transfers to non-custodial wallets are forbidden, Russians cannot withdraw purchased crypto to their own hardware wallets. That is a sharp contrast with markets like the US and EU, where choosing your own wallet is a core part of crypto investing. In Russia's regulated channel, your coins live at the depository.
• Full compliance deadline: Firms on the registers have until September 1, 2027, to meet every requirement, the central bank said.

The Sanctions Dimension Nobody Can Ignore

There is an elephant in the room: Sberbank, VTB and Atomyze — three of the flagship names on the registers — are all subject to Western sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and Russia has been accused of using crypto to sidestep those restrictions, FinanceFeeds reports.

The cross-border settlement provisions make the sanctions angle concrete. If exporters and importers can legally settle in crypto through licensed intermediaries, Russia gains a state-supervised channel for trade flows that the dollar system has closed off. That is plausibly the strategic motivation behind the whole framework — the retail launch, with its $3,600 caps and knowledge tests, is the consumer-facing layer of a system whose real weight is in institutional flows.

There is also a specific warning worth noting. Central bank data comes with an official caution: investors will bear the losses from any foreign stablecoin freeze — a risk that falls directly on Tether balances held through a sanctioned banking system. Tether's issuer has frozen USDT linked to sanctioned entities before, and the new law's insistence that depositories record client addresses makes those balances transparent to exactly the parties most likely to request a freeze. Holding USDT inside Sberbank is not the same as holding it in a private wallet, and the regulator is telling Russians as much.

What This Means for Bitcoin and the Global Market

Analysts tend to evaluate state crypto adoption on three axes — new demand, legitimization, and regulatory contagion. Russia scores on all three, with caveats.

New demand: A $46 billion first-year market with BTC and ETH as the only eligible coins funnels net new buying into the two largest assets. The cap structure (300,000 rubles per intermediary, per year) deliberately democratizes access across Sberbank's 110.6 million clients rather than concentrating it. Even partial uptake is meaningful in a global market where Bitcoin trades around $81,500 and the total crypto market cap sits near $2.8 trillion.

Legitimization: When the banking system of a G20 economy treats Bitcoin as a registered financial asset — with depositories, licensed exchanges and exchange-traded infrastructure — it strengthens the asset's standing with institutions worldwide. It also contrasts sharply with jurisdictions still debating basic licensing; compare how the US GENIUS Act stablecoin rules are building federal licensing in parallel, and how spot Bitcoin ETFs gave US investors a regulated on-ramp in 2024. Russia is effectively building its own version of that on-ramp — through banks instead of ETFs.

Regulatory contagion: The model Russia chose — banks as brokers, depositories as custodians, tight caps, knowledge tests, P2P banned — could become a template for other sanctioned or control-oriented states. It proves crypto can be integrated into a banking system without giving up surveillance. For Western regulators, the interesting question is whether the retail cap-and-test approach influences future EU or UK thinking on consumer crypto access.

Caveats: The sanctions overhang means Russian flows will stay largely ring-fenced from Western markets. Western exchanges and ETF issuers will not be touching Sberbank's order book. The demand effect is therefore additive rather than integrated — new buyers entering through a separate pipe, not competing for the same liquidity as Coinbase or ETF flows.

The Bottom Line

Three weeks ago, Russia had no legal crypto market at all. Now it has 17 licensed exchanges, 8 licensed depositories, two state banks ready to sell Bitcoin to 110 million people, and a conservative $46 billion first-year volume projection. The rules are restrictive — BTC, ETH and USDT only, $3,600 annual caps, no P2P, no self-custody — but the direction is unmistakable. A sovereign banking system is onboarding crypto, and the rest of the world should pay attention to how it goes.

Frequently Asked Questions

When will Russians be able to buy crypto through Sberbank and VTB?

VTB plans to open crypto trading to retail investors through its VTB My Investments app in November 2026, and also intends to launch its own crypto exchange in December. Sberbank targets December 1, 2026, offering crypto inside SberBank Online, SberInvestments and SberBusiness. The Moscow Exchange plans to enable crypto trading from the same December 1 date.

Which cryptocurrencies will be available to Russian retail investors?

Non-qualified retail investors will be able to buy only Bitcoin, Ether and USDT under the new framework. Qualified investors face no such asset restriction, though the exchange and depository infrastructure at launch is built around these three assets.

How much crypto can an ordinary Russian buy per year?

Up to 300,000 rubles — about $3,500 to $3,600 — per year through each approved intermediary. Every buyer must first pass a knowledge test. Qualified investors take the test but have no annual purchase cap.

Can Russians still trade crypto peer-to-peer?

Only until July 1, 2027. The new law forbids transfers of digital currency between individuals and transfers to non-custodial wallets (Part 5, Article 31 of Federal Law No. 282-FZ). After the transitional window closes, all crypto transactions must run through registered intermediaries.

Can Russians use crypto to pay for goods and services?

No. Crypto payments for goods and services remain illegal in Russia. The new law treats digital currencies as investment assets and cross-border settlement instruments, not as money.

Is buying crypto through Sberbank safe from stablecoin freezes?

Not entirely. The central bank itself warned that investors bear the losses from any foreign stablecoin freeze — a direct risk for USDT balances held through sanctioned banks, since Tether can freeze tokens at specific addresses. BTC and ETH carry no such issuer-freeze risk.