Russia just flipped the switch on a regulated crypto market. On October 6, the Bank of Russia published its first official registers of authorized crypto operators: 5 digital custodians and 4 crypto exchange operators. And the biggest name on the list is Sberbank, the country's largest bank, which plans to offer $BTC, $ETH and USDT to its clients from December 1.
1) Who got in
• Digital custodians (5): Sberbank, VTB, Voltari, Atomyze and Cloud Infrastructure.
• Crypto exchange operators (4): VTB, T-Invest Lab (T-Technologies group), Zefir and Sistema-Crypto.
• VTB is the only player on both lists.
They were admitted under the transitional rules of the new law "On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights", in force since September 1, 2026.
2) What they're allowed to do
• Custodians can record and transfer digital currencies and digital rights, and give clients access to the wallet addresses where those assets are held.
• Exchange operators can buy and sell crypto on their own behalf and for their own account, outside organized trading.
• They must follow the transaction and accounting rules from the day they were registered, and have until September 1, 2027 to be fully compliant.
3) What Sberbank is planning
• Sberbank applied for custodian status on October 5 and was registered the next day. Banks could use a simplified notification procedure that grants access in about one day.
• First products are targeted for December 1, 2026, inside SberBank Online, SberInvestments and SberBusiness.
• Initial assets: Bitcoin, Ether and USDT. The bank says the date still depends on the regulator and on the final secondary rules.
4) What doesn't change
• Paying for goods and services with crypto stays banned in Russia. This is an investment and custody framework, not a payments one.
• The whole market now sits under Bank of Russia supervision.
Why it matters
In the same week the US withdrew its unhosted-wallet rules and the SEC opened a custody proposal, one of the world's big economies is plugging its largest banks directly into Bitcoin and stablecoins. The pattern is the same everywhere: crypto access is moving from offshore apps to regulated bank apps. That's slower, more controlled, but it opens the door to millions of retail clients who never touched an exchange.
Your take: do big banks entering crypto bring new money into the market, or just more control over it? 👇
Sources: Bank of Russia (cbr.ru), Cointelegraph, Profile.ru, Finmarket. Not financial advice.
#Russia #CryptoRegulation #Bitcoin #CryptoNews