Sberbank plans crypto trading infrastructure by December
Get the Finance newsletter
Daily finance — markets, central banks, M&A, the prints that move money. Free.
- Sberbank plans to launch crypto trading infrastructure and a digital depository by Dec. 1, with the depository set to record client ownership and process most transactions outside the underlying blockchain.
- New federal regulations for crypto trading, custody, and settlement take effect Sept. 1, though requirements routing transactions through licensed intermediaries don't apply until July 2027.
- The Federation Council approved a law regulating crypto trading through licensed brokers, exchanges, asset managers, and depositories.
- Public exchange trading will be restricted to cryptocurrencies meeting Bank of Russia thresholds — average market cap above 5 trillion rubles ($64 billion) and daily volume above 1 trillion rubles ($12.8 billion) over two years.
- Crypto payments for goods and services inside Russia remain prohibited under the framework, while qualified investors gain access to a broader asset range.
- Sberbank began offering qualified investors bitcoin-linked structured bonds last year and completed a bitcoin-backed lending pilot with miner Intelion Data in December.
- Bank of Russia widened qualified-investor access to crypto-linked products in 2025 and proposed allowing limited direct retail purchases capped at 300,000 rubles annually per intermediary, subject to testing.
Why it matters: Sberbank's Dec. 1 target makes it the first major Russian bank publicly committing infrastructure to a framework that takes effect Sept. 1 but won't require licensed intermediaries until July 2027. The platform excludes smaller-cap tokens and blocks crypto for goods payments, concentrating compliant access among qualified investors and the country's biggest banks.
