Russia Will Soon Ban Peer-to-Peer Bitcoin Trading, Central Bank Confirms — SkimNews
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- Bank of Russia confirmed in an October 12 FAQ that direct crypto trades between individuals are legal only until July 1, 2027, under Federal Law No. 282-FZ ("On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights").
- Federal Law No. 282-FZ — signed by President Vladimir Putin on August 4 and effective September 1 — removes individual-to-individual trades from Article 30's list of permitted crypto operations, restricting residents to licensed brokers and registered exchange organizations.
- The new rules bar Russians from moving crypto from a digital account to their own non-custodial wallet, and ban transfers between persons through addresses run by digital depositories — killing the ruble-wire-for-USDT model that filled the gap after Binance sold its Russian business to CommEX in 2023.
- Non-qualified investors face a 300,000-ruble (~$3,600) annual purchase cap after passing a test, and can only buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, or USDT; qualified investors have no cap but the same three-coin menu.
- Russian banks must refuse clients funding crypto wallets on foreign platforms from July 1, 2027 and cannot accept rubles cashed out from those platforms, per GMT Legal's Andrei Tugarin.
- Sberbank, Russia's largest lender, joined the central bank's crypto exchange register on October 12 and plans to launch its first crypto products on December 1; VTB and T-Invest Lab are also on the register.
- Domestic crypto spending stays banned, but a carve-out allows crypto in foreign trade settlements — a channel Duma budget committee deputy chair Kaplan Panesh openly framed as a sanctions-circumvention route when the bill cleared first reading in April.
Why it matters: Russians lose the ruble-to-USDT corridor that filled Binance's 2023 exit: P2P trades die July 1, 2027, non-qualified buyers face a 300,000-ruble ($3,600) yearly cap limited to BTC, ETH, and USDT, and banks must block foreign-wallet funding — pushing volume onto licensed entities like Sberbank (products launching December 1), while the foreign-trade carve-out preserves a sanctions-circumvention channel the Duma itself flagged.
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