Russia’s legalized crypto trading could generate $46.4 billion for regulated exchanges in year one, Sber says

Russia’s new crypto market rules take effect on Sept. 1, and Sber expects domestic trading on regulated exchanges to reach 4 trillion rubles ($46.4 billion) in the first year. For PSPs and crypto-facing payment stacks, the detail that matters is simple: the official channel may open, but a large share of flow is still expected to stay outside it.

1. Sber, Russia’s largest bank, said regulated domestic crypto trading volumes could reach 4 trillion rubles in the first year after legalization, with growth to about 7.5 trillion rubles by 2029. The forecast was given by Sber Deputy Chairman Anatoly Popov in a Saturday report to Tass.
2. Popov said the forecast is conservative because many crypto transactions will continue to run through exchanges that are not regulated in Russia, which means they will bypass organized trading platforms. In other words, legalization does not automatically pull all volume into the domestic rails.
3. The rules are scheduled to take effect on Sept. 1, after President Vladimir Putin signed the law on Aug. 4. On Aug. 11, Russia’s central bank compiled a proposed list of crypto assets that could be admitted to public trading under the new regime.
4. The proposed list includes Bitcoin, Ether and Tether’s stablecoin USDT. For market participants, that is the first concrete signal on which assets may be allowed onto regulated venues once the framework is live.
5. Under the new rules, non-qualified investors can buy up to 300,000 Russian rubles worth of cryptocurrency per year through each intermediary, including a broker, crypto exchange service or asset manager. Qualified investors face no purchase limits for crypto assets traded on exchanges or over-the-counter markets.

For high-risk payment providers, Russia’s setup is a familiar split: regulated access on paper, and a lot of activity still outside it. That usually means two questions matter most — which entities can actually onboard, and how much of the real flow will stay in the gray market.