Bank of Russia sets registry-based entry rules for crypto market participants, effective October 5, 2026

The Bank of Russia has approved the operating rules for crypto market participants, including crypto exchangers, digital custodians, and information system operators. In practice, that means legal activity in this lane now depends on getting into the regulator’s special registers — the sort of gatekeeping that matters a lot if you are planning where crypto flows can actually be touched, held, or settled in Russia.

1. The new framework says crypto-related businesses can operate legally only after being entered into the Bank of Russia’s special registers. The rules cover qualification requirements for management, the procedure for maintaining the registers, and the data that applicants must submit for registration.
2. Applicants will need founding documents, contact details, identification documents, and information on ownership stakes and rights to conduct operations. For companies already operating in the market, the Bank of Russia предусмотрел an easier admission process to obtain status as a digital custodian or crypto exchanger.
3. The documents have already been registered with the Ministry of Justice and will take effect on October 5, 2026. According to Vladimir Chistyukhin, deputy governor of the Bank of Russia, the first companies may receive licenses and be entered into the registers by the end of 2026.
4. The registry model splits crypto activity in the Russian market across specialized intermediaries: buying and selling will go through crypto exchangers, trades on organized markets will go through brokers and asset managers, and rights to assets will be recorded by digital custodians. All of these intermediaries must be in the regulator’s register and connected to licensed trading organizers.
5. For digital custodians, this is not just storage. They must maintain four registers — of depositors, assets, transactions, and client accounts — and record each transaction. They are also responsible for checking clients to identify suspicious transfers. Capital requirements vary: 50 million rubles in the base case, 100 million rubles for work with foreign systems, and more than 250 million rubles for settlement custodians.

For PSPs, exchanges, and custody providers watching high-risk flows, the important detail is not the label “crypto regulation” but the plumbing: who can touch funds, who can record ownership, and which entities the regulator is willing to put on the board. Here, the answer is: only firms inside the Bank of Russia’s registers, after the rest of the first-line acts are adopted, published, and in force.