Putin Signs Russia's First Comprehensive Digital Currency Law

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the country's first comprehensive law governing digital currencies on Tuesday, state news agency Tass reported. The legislation sets rules for how crypto is issued, stored, accounted for, and traded, wrapping exchanges, digital depositories, brokers, and clearing houses into one framework.

It isn't a free market. The law keeps the ban on using crypto and digital rights as payment for goods and services, and it blocks advertising that pitches crypto payments. Russia already legalized cryptocurrency mining in 2024, when Putin signed a separate bill green-lighting the industry, so this law fills the gap on trading and custody that the mining rules left open.

How the market gets built

Only organizations on a special government registry may run crypto exchanges, and existing operators get a grace period to register by July 1, 2027. Registered exchanges need at least 15 million rubles (about $187,000) of their own capital and must join a self-regulatory body in the financial market.

Regular exchange activity kicks in once a firm trades more than 3.5 million rubles in a month. Banks and foreign-lender branches must reject transfers they suspect are routed through an unregistered provider.

Retail access is capped and gated. Non-accredited investors may buy the most liquid cryptocurrencies (list to be disclosed) through licensed intermediaries, up to 300,000 rubles per year per intermediary, and both retail and qualified investors must pass a knowledge test. Qualified investors face no purchase limit.

The law also guarantees court protection for crypto owners regardless of whether they declared the assets before.

Most of the provisions take effect September 1. Decrypt tracked the bill as it neared passage, noting the gap between "buy crypto" and "use crypto" was the whole point—Russia wants a regulated on-ramp, not a parallel currency. The framework dovetails with the digital ruble push, which the central bank governor says banks must support by the same September 1 date.

The sanctions question

The law's exceptions matter most outside Russia. Settlements under foreign trade contracts between residents and nonresidents are permitted, as are deals involving mined coins and payments inside digital asset platforms. That carve-out is the part Western regulators will watch: Russia has leaned on crypto for cross-border trade as sanctions pressure built.

The law gives Russian holders something they didn't have: legal standing and a licensed venue. It gives the state what it wanted more: a central bank-supervised pipeline it can monitor.