Russia lets exchanges trade Bitcoin, Ether and USDT from Nov 22

Russia cleared its exchanges to begin organized trading in Bitcoin, Ether and Tether's USDT from November 22. It is the first time ordinary Russians can legally buy major cryptocurrencies on a regulated domestic venue, with retail buyers capped at 300,000 rubles a year.

Its central bank set out the rules in an ordinance registered by the Justice Ministry on November 3 and published on November 11. News agency Interfax first reported the registration. The directive takes effect 10 days after publication, which falls on November 22.

What the new rules allow

The rules open a legal door that did not exist for most Russians. Before this, crypto trading was walled off to a small group of wealthy, specially qualified investors under a limited pilot. That door is wider now. It is far from wide open.

Which coins qualify is the regulator's call, not the market's. Under the law President Vladimir Putin signed on August 4, a token has to clear tests on market value, average daily trading volume and at least five years of price history on foreign markets before it can be admitted. Bitcoin, Ether and USDT cleared that bar first. The central bank keeps the keys to the list.

Non-qualified investors, meaning most people, can buy only the approved coins and only up to 300,000 rubles a year through each broker, exchange office or asset manager they use. That is about 3,600 dollars at the official rate. Spread across several intermediaries, the real ceiling is higher, but each channel is capped.

Qualified investors face no purchase cap and can reach any cryptocurrency the rules permit. Both groups have to pass a knowledge test and read a risk disclosure before their first trade. The test is the gate.

The catch for exchanges

A legal market on paper is not the same as a live one. No exchange has confirmed that the Bank of Russia has approved its trading rules, which every venue needs before it can match a single order. That approval is the real switch.

Each venue must also register the brokers, trust managers and clearing houses that take part, keep separate records of orders and completed deals, calculate several reference prices and report all of it to the central bank through the same channels used for stocks and bonds. The paperwork is heavy. It is meant to be.

Plumbing for the market has been going in for weeks. A public register of crypto exchange providers opened on October 6 and had grown to 17 firms by late October, alongside eight licensed digital depositories that will hold customer coins. Each depository needs liquid capital of between 50 million and 250 million rubles, depending on what it does, a buffer the regulator wants in place before real money moves.

State lenders are lining up anyway. Sberbank plans its first crypto products around December 1 and has been testing Bitcoin, Ether and USDT trades inside its app, while VTB aims to open retail access through its investment app during November and direct exchange access in December. Vitaly Sergeichuk, a VTB deputy president, said the bank expects to "open access to digital currency trading for a broad range of investors" through its own channels.

Why Russia is doing this, and what stays banned

Money sits behind the move. Putin signed the enabling law in August, and the new regime opens a supervised channel for cross-border trade. That matters for a country largely cut off from Western banking by sanctions.

Skeptics see less of a breakthrough. The cap, the test and the ban on everyday payments leave a tightly supervised investment product, not an open market. For a trader used to offshore venues with no limits, a 300,000 ruble ceiling and a quiz may feel like a step sideways. Russia is not alone in gatekeeping this hard. Nigeria's central bank recently licensed regulated stablecoins and banned algorithmic ones.

What people still cannot do is pay for goods and services at home with crypto. That ban stays. From July 1, 2027, Russians will be able to trade only through registered intermediaries, and firms already on the central bank's registers have until September 1, 2027 to comply fully.

What to watch

The first real test is whether any exchange secures the central bank's sign-off before November 22, or whether the start date slips while venues and the regulator settle the fine print. Watch Moscow Exchange's planned December 1 pilot for how much actually trades, and at what spread.

Also worth watching: how many retail buyers pass the knowledge test and clear the risk disclosure, and whether the 300,000 ruble cap nudges serious traders toward qualified status. Neither the banks nor the exchange has said how many accounts are ready. The pattern is familiar, the same push to pull trading onto licensed, supervised venues that drove Binance to close accounts for users in four EU states. The numbers will tell the story over the coming weeks.