Russia’s State Duma approves criminal liability for illegal cryptocurrency exchange

The only concrete point in the source is that Russia’s State Duma has approved criminal liability for illegal cryptocurrency exchange. For crypto and other high-risk payment operators, that is the kind of legal shift that can change how local on- and off-ramps are structured, who is willing to touch them, and what compliance teams need to treat as acceptable exposure.

1. The source says the State Duma of the Russian Federation has approved criminal liability for illegal cryptocurrency exchange.
2. No further details are given in the source about the exact scope of the offense, the penalty range, the effective date, or whether the measure still requires additional approval steps.
3. For PSPs, acquirers, and banks that process crypto-related flows, the practical takeaway is simple: when a jurisdiction moves exchange activity into criminal territory, transaction monitoring, merchant onboarding, and counterparties linked to local crypto conversion all need to be reviewed with that in mind.