Russia to ban direct P2P crypto trades from July 1, 2027

Russia’s central bank has set a deadline for direct peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto trading between individuals: it will remain allowed only until July 1, 2027. For anyone watching regulated crypto rails, the more immediate point is that Russia is narrowing the part of the market that has historically sat outside intermediated flows.

1. The Bank of Russia updated its guidance on Monday to say that individuals will no longer be able to exchange crypto assets directly without authorized intermediaries starting July 1, 2027. In practice, that means P2P transfers between individuals are being pushed out of the informal lane and into supervised channels.
2. The regulator also clarified that individuals are not allowed to transfer crypto assets from their digital accounts to their own non-custodial, or self-custodial, wallets. That matters because self-custody is often the escape hatch when users want to move value without going through a custodial stack.
3. The move lands alongside Russia’s broader effort to expand a regulated crypto market. On Monday, the Bank of Russia authorized Sberbank, the country’s largest bank, to offer crypto exchange services after earlier approving it as a digital asset custodian.
4. Russia’s new crypto rules came into force on Sept. 1 and brought exchange operators and custodians under central bank oversight. The country also continues to prohibit cryptocurrency payments for goods and services, so the permitted use case is getting narrower, not broader.
5. Industry executives previously told Cointelegraph that restrictions on P2P crypto trading and noncustodial wallets may be difficult to enforce. Jan3 CEO Samson Mow said P2P trading is more resilient to regulatory crackdowns than centralized platforms, while SatoshiLabs executive Stepan Uherik said wallet app bans would leave hardware and desktop wallets unaffected.