Russia’s central bank register of licensed crypto exchangers listed 17 organisations on 23 October 2026, up from four when it opened on 6 October, according to the register file the central bank published on Friday. The 17th entry, a St Petersburg company called Prosto, was admitted on 22 October. Sberbank and VTB, the country’s two largest state banks, are on the list, and both now say when ordinary customers should be able to buy crypto through them: VTB in November and December, according to DL News, and Sberbank from 1 December, according to Interfax. Both dates are plans, not launches.
A second register, for digital depositories that hold the assets, counts eight firms in its 23 October edition. VTB, Sberbank and a Moscow company called TT appear on both lists, which lets them handle the trade and the custody under one roof.
Our earlier report on Russia’s July 2027 end to P2P crypto trading and its ban on transfers to self-custody wallets covered what the law takes away from individuals. The register is the other side of it: the firms Russians will have to go through, and that EU firms may not deal with.
Russia’s crypto exchange register went from 4 to 17 names in 17 days
Law 282-FZ on digital currencies and digital rights came into force on 1 September 2026. The central bank started taking applications on 5 October, Interfax reported, and made its first entries the next day. New names were added on ten of the 13 working days between 6 and 22 October. Twelve were on the list by 14 October. Five more followed: Razvitie Finansovykh Tekhnologiy on 16 October, Bank Stavr and Tsifrovoy Poryadok on 19 October, Veb3.0 on 20 October and Prosto on 22 October.
The table below gives every organisation on the register at 00:00 Moscow time on 23 October, with the date its right to operate began. Names are transliterated from the register, which is published in Russian.
| Right to operate from | Organisation | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| 6 Oct | VTB | Bank |
| 6 Oct | T-Invest Lab | Company (T-Bank group, per DL News) |
| 6 Oct | Zefir | Company |
| 6 Oct | Sistema-Crypto | Company |
| 8 Oct | Finpilot | Settlement non-bank credit organisation |
| 8 Oct | ProBank | Bank |
| 9 Oct | Moy Bitkoin | Company |
| 9 Oct | Khlynov | Bank (Kirov) |
| 12 Oct | Sberbank | Bank |
| 12 Oct | Paradise Technology | Company (Ryazan) |
| 13 Oct | ASPK | Company |
| 14 Oct | TT | Company |
| 16 Oct | Razvitie Finansovykh Tekhnologiy | Company |
| 19 Oct | Bank Stavr | Bank (Stavropol) |
| 19 Oct | Tsifrovoy Poryadok | Company |
| 20 Oct | Veb3.0 | Company |
| 22 Oct | Prosto | Company (St Petersburg) |
Six of the 17 are credit institutions: VTB, Sberbank, ProBank, Khlynov, Bank Stavr and Finpilot, a settlement non-bank credit organisation. The other 11 are limited companies. Several are young: Zefir, TT, Tsifrovoy Poryadok, Prosto and Finpilot were all entered in the state company register in 2025, according to the registration numbers listed by the central bank. Most entries give Moscow addresses, but Paradise Technology is in Ryazan, Khlynov is a regional bank from Kirov and Bank Stavr is based in Stavropol. For Prosto, the register gives a St Petersburg address and contact details; little else about the company is public.
The speed of the bank entries has a simple explanation. Banks and other institutions that already hold a central-bank licence can be added through a notification procedure that takes one working day, DL News and Interfax both reported. A new company has to go through the full application.
The T-Bank group has a foot in each register. DL News reports that T-Technologies, T-Bank’s parent, registered T-Invest Lab as an exchange provider and Atomyze as a depository. In the registers they appear as two separate limited companies sharing an address on Gruzinsky Val in Moscow. The depository list also includes Vaultary, Oblachnaya Infrastruktura and Tokeny in Moscow and Madrigal OIS in Rostov-on-Don, alongside VTB, Sberbank and TT.
Sberbank and VTB retail crypto: dates set, conditions attached
VTB: November in its investment app, December on its own exchange
VTB moved first. Its broker closed the bank’s first deals in digital currency, in stablecoins, for corporate clients on 6 October, settled through a digital depository built on VTB’s own, Russian business agency AKM reported the next day. AKM described it as a pilot to check trading, accounting and custody systems before opening the service to a wider client base.
The retail dates come from Vitaly Sergeichuk, a deputy president of VTB and chairman of its management board, as reported by DL News on 22 October. The bank expects to “open access to digital currency trading for a broad range of investors” in November through its VTB My Investments app and in December through its own exchange, according to DL News’s English rendering. VTB has not confirmed those dates in a press release, so for now they rest on one outlet.
VTB had said it would seek a licence once the law took effect, to serve both corporate and retail clients, Kommersant reported in June.
Sberbank: 1 December, inside apps customers already use
Sberbank entered the exchange register on 12 October. The status “will allow the bank to provide services related to organizing the circulation of digital currency”, the bank said in a statement reported by Interfax the same day, adding that the first products would arrive on 1 December in interfaces its clients already use. Russian financial media name SberBank Online, SberInvestments and SberBusiness as the channels, and say the date depends on the central bank finishing its secondary regulation. Sberbank has not confirmed either point in a published statement.
Trades in bitcoin, ether and USDT are already being tested inside Sberbank’s app, DL News reported, citing CoinDesk. Russian tech outlet kod.ru reported the test on 9 October. Sberbank has not published details.
Sberbank is not new to crypto payments. On 1 September it began cross-border crypto settlements for companies in foreign trade. First deputy chairman Alexander Vedyakhin said at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok that a settlement takes minutes, has no minimum amount and costs 0.3% on average, Interfax reported. Those payments run under an experimental regime for cross-border settlement that dates from September 2024, according to DL News.
MTS Bank and T-Bank
MTS Bank plans basic crypto services in the fourth quarter, Interfax reported, as cited by DL News. T-Invest Lab has been on the register since the first day; the T-Bank group has not announced a date for a retail product.
What a Russian retail customer will be allowed to buy
The licensed route is narrow by design. Investors who are not qualified, about 98% of Russian investors according to central-bank figures reported by The Moscow Times on 22 July, can buy only the most liquid coins and must pass a test first. They are capped at 300,000 roubles a year through any one intermediary, about $3,800 according to DL News. Qualified investors also take a test but face no cap, DL News reported, citing central-bank statements from July. The rules covered in our 16 October piece name bitcoin and ether, with Tether’s USDT admitted as a foreign digital instrument; no bank has yet published its own menu.
Paying for goods and services inside Russia with crypto stays banned. Cross-border settlement is allowed, which is the use Sberbank already sells to exporters and importers.
No bank has published fees, client numbers or volumes for the retail products. From 1 July 2027 the authorities also plan penalties for unlicensed crypto intermediaries, modelled on those for illegal banking, according to DL News; the amounts have not been published.
Two deadlines in 2027 push trading onto the register
Two dates explain why so many firms rushed in during October. From 1 July 2027, Russian residents may trade crypto only through or with organisations on these registers, according to the central bank’s crypto page and DL News. Firms already registered then have until 1 September 2027 to comply fully with the new rules, DL News and Unchained reported. Earlier press coverage gave other grace dates, so the September deadline is best read as DL News’s account until the central bank confirms it.
| Date | What happens | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Sep 2026 | Law 282-FZ in force; Sberbank starts cross-border crypto settlement for companies | Interfax |
| 5 Oct 2026 | Bank of Russia accepts applications | Interfax |
| 6 Oct 2026 | First 4 exchangers and 5 depositories registered; VTB’s first corporate stablecoin deal | Registers; AKM |
| 12 Oct 2026 | Sberbank enters the exchange register | Register; Interfax |
| 22 Oct 2026 | Prosto becomes the 17th exchanger | Register; DL News |
| November 2026 | VTB plans retail access in VTB My Investments | DL News |
| 1 Dec 2026 | Sberbank plans first retail products, subject to regulations | Interfax; Russian media |
| December 2026 | VTB plans retail trading on its own exchange | DL News |
| 1 Jul 2027 | Residents may trade only through registered firms | Bank of Russia; DL News |
| 1 Sep 2027 | Registered firms must comply fully | DL News; Unchained |
Why EU firms cannot deal with any of the 17
For readers and companies in Europe, the register matters for a different reason. The EU’s 20th sanctions package against Russia, adopted on 23 April 2026 according to TRM Labs, bans EU persons from transacting with any crypto-asset service provider established in Russia or Belarus, and with any Russia-based platform that lets users transfer or exchange crypto-assets. The ban has applied since 24 May 2026, TRM Labs and Elliptic reported. Law firms Morgan Lewis and Matheson describe the same sector-wide prohibition. The package also added the digital rouble and the RUBx token to the prohibited list.
Earlier EU packages listed individual Russian platforms one by one. The 20th package switched to a blanket ban because further listings were “likely to result in the set-up of new ones to circumvent those listings”, in the package’s wording as quoted by TRM Labs.
Every organisation on the Bank of Russia’s list is a company established in Russia: that is a condition of being on it. As TRM Labs and the law firms describe the ban, an EU exchange, broker or custodian may not transact with such providers. That covers firms authorised under MiCA, the EU crypto regulation explained in our MiCA guide. This is our reading of those summaries, not a ruling by any authority. Neither the European Commission nor a national supervisor has commented publicly on these specific registrations.
The same applies, on that reading, to France’s registered and MiCA-licensed providers under the AMF and to Italy’s providers supervised by Consob, the Bank of Italy and the OAM. The AMF, Consob and the OAM have not commented on the Russian register. One practical difference stands out for comparison: Russia caps most retail buyers at 300,000 roubles a year per intermediary, while MiCA sets no per-person purchase cap.
Exchanges outside Russia have been closing the door from their side too. Bitget gave Russian and Belarusian users until 21 October to close positions and withdraw.
A state-licensed channel after A7A5 and Grinex
The new regime arrives after the collapse of the rails Russia used for crypto payments under sanctions. A7A5, a rouble-pegged token launched in January 2025, moved more than $102 billion in about 251,000 transactions in its first year, blockchain analytics firm Elliptic reported on 29 July 2026. The US, the UK and the EU sanctioned it in three waves in the second half of 2025. By June 2026 its average daily volume had fallen to $24.3 million, 96% below its July 2025 peak, and no new tokens had been minted since July 2025, Elliptic said. Grinex, its main trading venue, took card top-ups offline on 4 April 2026 and reported a breach about 12 days later, with over 1 billion roubles (about $15 million) stolen, according to Elliptic. Grinex blamed a state-backed attack; Elliptic notes that the cause is disputed.
Our analysis, not a finding of any source: the licensed route replaces those informal rails with banks and companies that the central bank supervises directly, and it keeps USDT on the permitted list. It is a closed circuit. It sits next to the euro market, not inside it, because the EU ban keeps European firms out.
What to watch before 1 December
- Whether the Bank of Russia completes the secondary rules that Sberbank’s 1 December start depends on.
- Whether VTB confirms its November and December dates in its own words; so far they come from DL News alone.
- New entries on the exchange register, which the central bank publishes as a dated spreadsheet.
- Any EU follow-up, including publication references for the 20th package’s crypto provisions and statements by national supervisors.
The next fixed date in the Russian timeline is 1 July 2027, when trading outside the registers ends for residents. In the EU, the anti-money-laundering regulation starts to apply on 10 July 2027, with its own ban on anonymous crypto accounts.