Russia has prepared a draft law that would remove cryptocurrencies from a special financial regulatory regime and make their use a normal part of everyday life for citizens, a senior lawmaker said on Saturday, according to TASS.
Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma’s financial markets committee, said that lawmakers plan to devote substantial attention in the upcoming spring session to digital financial assets and cryptocurrencies. “A bill has already been drafted that will exempt cryptocurrencies from special financial regulation, meaning they will become a common feature in our lives,” he added.
Aksakov said the cryptocurrency market would be opened to non-qualified individuals and retail investors, but their purchases of digital currency would be limited to 300,000 roubles, while professional participants in the financial market would be able to operate in the sector without such caps, he added.
According to Aksakov, cryptocurrencies could be actively used in international settlements and, once issued in Russia, could then be placed on financial markets in other countries.
From Hostility to Controlled Adoption of Crypto
This comes after several years of rule changes as Moscow has tried to reshape its approach to digital assets under sanctions and market pressure. The government has shifted from hostility towards private cryptocurrencies to a tightly managed system in which the rouble still anchors the financial system, but with limited room for the controlled use of crypto.
In 2020, Russia introduced a basic legal framework for digital assets. That law treated cryptocurrencies as a form of property rather than money, banned their use for payments inside the country and required reporting of large transactions involving digital coins.
At the same time, the authorities developed a state-backed alternative in the form of the digital rouble under a law passed in mid-2023, which gave the Bank of Russia full control over issuing the digital rouble and running its infrastructure. The law also allowed for a broad pilot with major banks and retailers, positioning the central bank’s digital currency as the main tool for digital payments in the domestic market.
After the war with Ukraine and the wave of Western sanctions, the focus shifted towards using crypto mainly in foreign trade. In 2024, lawmakers approved an “experimental legal regime” that lets companies, under central bank oversight, settle some cross-border deals in cryptocurrencies.
Meanwhile, a separate law legalized large-scale crypto mining and linked it to international settlements, giving sanctioned exporters and importers another channel to move funds through digital coins, even though crypto remains banned for everyday payments at home.
By 2025, Russian firms were increasingly relying on a mix of bilateral arrangements, gold, and cryptocurrencies to keep trade flowing, with regulators rolling out tools such as the “Transparent Blockchain” platform to monitor cross-border flows more closely.
At the same time, the central bank set out tighter rules for the domestic market, including annual limits for non-qualified investors, a clear requirement that all internal payments stay in roubles and tougher rules and penalties for exchanges and miners.
Aksakov’s bill represents the next step, widening public access to crypto while keeping its use tightly constrained by investment limits, sanctions policy, and direct state control.
