MOEX starts preparing a digital depositary for crypto as Russia’s new rules take effect on 1 September

MOEX is preparing to launch its own digital depositary for cryptocurrency operations, according to RBC Investments. For high-risk payments and trading infrastructure players, the important part is not the headline itself but the plumbing: who holds client balances, where liquidity sits, and whether participants are forced into a single infrastructure layer or can keep their own.

1. RBC Investments, citing sources in the brokerage industry and a person close to the MOEX group, says the exchange is preparing a digital depositary for crypto operations as a new structure, rather than building it on top of the exchange itself or the National Settlement Depository (NSD).
2. MOEX said it is “preparing to provide the possibility of making deals” with crypto on organized trading platforms under the new regulatory framework. It also said it plans to organize the accounting of digital currencies with the participation of partner digital depositaries.
3. Vladimir Putin signed the law regulating cryptocurrency in Russia, and it will partially enter into force on 1 September. The market, however, does not yet have a clear picture of how crypto depositary accounting will work in practice. Sberbank, T-Bank, VTB, and Alfa-Bank are also planning to create their own crypto depositaries.
4. One brokerage source told RBC Investments that the Russian crypto market will have several liquidity centers. In that setup, regulation does not require professional market participants to connect to MOEX’s digital depositary: brokers can either use it or carry out operations within their own accounting structure.
5. Another broker said that if a broker wants access to crypto trading on MOEX, an anonymous account will be opened in MOEX’s depositary for each client. In that model, the central depositary would not know the client’s identity, similar to the NSD and securities holders.

One source compared the setup to Russia’s regulated forex-dealer market: MOEX quotes the currencies, while a narrow group of Central Bank-licensed forex dealers organizes several liquidity pools based on banks. In this case, the pools would be crypto exchanges. Another source said the infrastructure will largely repeat the current securities custody model, with each broker creating its own crypto depositary and then opening a nominee holder account at MOEX. Not every broker, the source added, will want to do that, because it requires significant technical investment and capital.