Russia’s Central Bank proposes Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT for exchange trading

The Bank of Russia has proposed adding Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT to the list of cryptocurrencies that can be publicly traded on Russian exchanges. For high-risk operators, the important detail is not the headline-grabbing list itself, but the structure around it: qualified investors get broad access, while non-qualified investors face a 300,000 ruble annual cap with a single intermediary.

1. The proposal comes from the Bank of Russia’s draft instruction and follows Vladimir Putin’s law on cryptocurrency regulation, signed in early August. That law sets the threshold for crypto assets to be allowed into public trading: average market capitalisation over two years must exceed 5 trillion rubles, average daily trading volume must be 1 trillion rubles, and the asset must have at least five years of trading history on foreign venues.
2. Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT are the three assets named in the draft. As of 11 August, Bitcoin’s market value was $1.29 trillion and Ethereum’s was $227.3 billion. USDT, issued by Tether, is the largest stablecoin and is pegged to the US dollar, which is exactly why it sits awkwardly in some legal definitions of “cryptoasset” and neatly in others.
3. Under the original bill, digital currencies were defined as assets with no obligated party to their holders. Stablecoins did not fit that wording because their issuers — Tether in the case of USDT — take on obligations to maintain the token’s value and redeem it. The amendment added at the second reading gives investors access to these assets.
4. Other cryptocurrencies can be admitted to public trading by the Central Bank temporarily, for up to six months. Exchanges will also be able to offer any cryptocurrencies to qualified investors, and those transactions will not count as public circulation. In other words: the market can be wider than the public list, but only for investors who clear the qualified-investor bar.
5. All investors, regardless of status, will have to pass a test and acknowledge the risks of cryptoasset investing, the Central Bank said. For non-qualified investors, the annual purchase limit is 300,000 rubles per intermediary — whether that intermediary is a broker, a crypto exchange, or an asset manager — and only the most liquid cryptocurrencies will be available to them.

The draft instruction is open for public comment until 24 August. The Central Bank expects crypto operations in Russia to start in November, while Moscow Exchange has said it expects to launch crypto trading before the end of this year.