A7A5 ruble stablecoin transaction volume tops $110 billion, CertiK says

CertiK says the ruble-pegged stablecoin A7A5 has cleared $110 billion in cumulative onchain transaction volume since launch. For high-risk PSPs, the part that matters is not the headline number itself, but the plumbing: sanctioned venues, bank exposure in Kyrgyzstan and Russia, and DeFi rails that make enforcement harder than a simple wallet freeze.

1. According to CertiK, A7A5 reached a 43% share of the global non-dollar stablecoin market from February last year through May. The number of wallet holders more than doubled over the same period, from 13,000 to 29,000.
2. CertiK put trading volume in the A7A5/ruble pair at $11.2 billion and in the A7A5/USDT pair at $6.1 billion. The main trading venue named in the report was Grinex, a sanctioned exchange and the successor to the shut down Garantex platform.
3. The security researchers said A7A5 was designed with three sanction-resistance mechanisms. First, there is no centralized kill switch: the smart contracts that can freeze wallets and funds are controlled entirely by Russian and Kyrgyz developers.
4. Second, the assets backing the stablecoin are held mainly in banks in Kyrgyzstan and Russia, placing them outside the direct reach of US or EU authorities. Third, A7A5 uses DeFi liquidity pools such as Curve and Uniswap, reducing reliance on centralized exchanges that can freeze assets at a regulator’s request.
5. CertiK said regulators cannot directly alter Ethereum or Tron code to remove A7A5. Sanctions from the US, the EU, and the UK instead target physical and digital choke points such as access to banking systems and exchanges.

Old Vector, a company registered in Kyrgyzstan, launched A7A5 in January last year. Its co-owners are Moldovan-Russian businessman Ilan Shor and Russian state-owned Promsvyazbank. TRM Labs previously said sanctions-evasion-related transaction volume rose by 400% in 2025, with a significant share attributed to A7A5; the main flows were observed in China, Southeast Asia, and South Africa, with the largest volumes in China and Hong Kong.