Bank of Russia registers first crypto market participants on 6 October

The Bank of Russia has added nine organizations to its crypto market registries, giving the first official status to exchange providers and digital custodians. For high-risk payment firms, the important part is not the headline itself but the structure behind it: who can trade, who can hold assets, and what it will cost to get in.

1. Four organizations received the status of digital currency exchangers: VTB, T-Invest Lab, Zefir, and Sistema-Krypto. These entities will be allowed to buy and sell digital currencies on their own behalf outside organized trading.
2. Five organizations received digital depository licenses: VTB, Sberbank, Atomayz, Voltari, and Oblachnaya Infrastruktura. Digital depositories will keep records of digital currencies and digital rights, and provide clients with access to identifier addresses where these assets are accounted for.
3. The Bank of Russia’s rules that define how applicants can enter these registries came into force on 5 October. For professional securities market participants, applications are being reviewed on an accelerated basis until 1 July 2027, and the review takes one day.
4. Digital depositories will also be able to act as nominal holders of digital assets and process payments in digital assets that are intended for investors. On top of custody, they must maintain four registers: depositors, assets, transactions, and client accounts, and record every operation while checking clients for suspicious transfers.
5. The capital requirements are different depending on the license: a minimum of 15 million rubles for exchangers and from 50 million to 250 million rubles for digital depositories. The article says experts view the creation of a digital depository as a highly expensive project, with budgets that can run into hundreds of millions of rubles, which points to a market likely to form around a small number of large players.

The Bank of Russia also wrote into the rules that in force majeure situations a digital depository bears no responsibility toward clients. Until 1 July 2027, the current operating order remains in place; after that, the law envisages exchanges only through licensed services. For PSPs, acquirers, and banking partners, that means the Russian crypto stack is being pushed into a licensed, inventory-heavy model rather than a free-for-all.