Russian ruble stablecoin A7A5 passes $110 billion in onchain transactions despite Western sanctions: CertiK

A7A5, the ruble-backed stablecoin tied to Russian cross-border settlement firms, has kept growing after sanctions hits from the EU and other Western authorities. For PSPs and banks, the useful bit is not the political backdrop; it is that the structure was built to keep issuance, reserves, and freeze controls outside Western-controlled infrastructure.

1. CertiK says A7A5 has processed more than $110 billion in cumulative onchain transactions, captured about 43% of the global non-US dollar stablecoin market, and increased its holder count from 13,000 to 29,000 wallets between February 2025 and May 2026.
2. The EU’s 19th sanctions package, adopted on Oct. 23, 2025, prohibited transactions involving A7A5 from Nov. 12. CertiK said the reserve structure places key assets outside direct Western enforcement reach, which is the part that matters if you are trying to understand why the asset kept moving anyway.
3. A7A5 was issued in January 2025 by Old Vector LLC, a Kyrgyz entity acting on behalf of A7 LLC, a Russian cross-border-settlement firm co-owned by Moldovan-Russian oligarch Ilan Shor and Russian state-owned defense sector lender Promsvyazbank. Russian authorities later recognized A7A5 under the country’s digital financial asset framework.
4. CertiK said A7A5 recorded $11.2 billion in trading volume across A7A5/RUB and $6.1 billion in A7A5/USDT trades, primarily through Grinex, the successor to Garantex. Garantex had previously functioned as a laundering venue for Conti, Black Basta, LockBit and some illicit funds attributed to North Korean-linked actors, including $30 million from the 2022 Horizon Bridge hack sent to Garantex in February 2023.
5. According to Jonathan Riss, OSINT and blockchain intelligence analyst at CertiK, the stablecoin was designed without a centralized kill switch, with smart contracts for wallet and fund freezes controlled by Russian and Kyrgyz developers. CertiK also said reserves sit in Central Asian banking networks, predominantly in Kyrgyzstan and in the Russian banking system, while distribution relies on DeFi liquidity pools such as Curve and Uniswap to reduce exposure to centralized exchange freezes.

US regulators have already shown the playbook on the legacy rail side: the US Secret Service seized the Garantex domain in March 2025, and Tether froze approximately $28 million in USDt held by Garantex-controlled wallets. A7A5’s setup is basically the answer to that sequence, which is why it matters to anyone screening settlement flows, reserve locations, and freeze authority.