Bank of Russia pushes crypto exchanges toward stock-market settlement speeds

The Bank of Russia wants crypto exchange settlement to be as fast as classic stock-market clearing. For high-risk payment and crypto operators, the point is not the slogan; it is the plumbing, because this kind of speed requires a coordinated setup across exchanges, banks, and digital depositories.

1. The regulator is asking for transaction speed at crypto exchanges that is comparable to settlement on the traditional stock market. In practice, that means the client’s cash and crypto should not sit with the exchange while it looks for the asset to buy.
2. Experts quoted in the source say that delivering this speed will require a tightly connected market infrastructure. A digital bank and a depository would need to work together to administer address identifiers and move digital currency between the accounts of the parties to the transaction.
3. The source says this setup will be easier for large ecosystems, specifically VTB, Sberbank, and T-Technologies, which have already entered the registers of crypto exchanges and digital depositories. Smaller exchanges, by contrast, will have to build integrations with depositories and banks from scratch.
4. The market already has examples of fast execution: in digital depositories, transfers between test wallets happen almost instantly, and the first inter-depository transaction in Russia took about one minute, according to the source. That is the benchmark the regulator appears to have in mind.
5. Alexander Kretov, head of blockchain technology development at T-Bank, said the logic is clear: client funds and crypto should not “hang” with the exchange while it searches for the right asset. That is the operational requirement, not a branding exercise.