03-17-2025 
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The Russian government is mulling to introduce new regulations for local digital asset trading, but it will initially limit the sector to qualified investors.
The Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Russia (BoR) have been discussing a new framework for the sector to ease access to digital assets for Russians. The new experimental legal regime was revealed by Alexey Yakovlev, who heads the financial policy department at the Ministry of Finance, local news outlet Interfax reports.
“This is not just an idea, this is a task that is being done. We hope that it will be implemented in the near future, most likely in the format of an experimental legal regime,” Yakovlev stated while delivering his speech at an event held by Russian asset managers.
In Russia, investors can buy, sell and store digital assets. They can also use them to make international payments under a new regulatory framework introduced last year to offer reprieve to Russian traders hard hit by sanctions from American and European nations.
However, Russian law prohibits residents from using digital assets to make local payments, which Yakovlev says requires a much more elaborate framework than international payments.
“…because allowing digital currency into domestic circulation is a completely different story and requires much more meticulous work, which we are doing…the most important thing is that the issue is being addressed, the issue is moving forward,” he told journalists on the sidelines of the event.
The experimental regime will focus solely on ‘super-qualified’ investors, a new group of individuals with a higher risk tolerance.“This is a category that does not yet exist, so we are defining it and to what extent this can be done in the current conditions without risks for the financial system, monetary policy and security,” Yakovlev explained.
The proposed policy comes amid a digital asset push by the Kremlin over the past two years. In addition to international payments and being part of the BRICS initiative for a blockchain-based cross-border payments platform, the Russian government has also been aggressively pushing BTC mining. Despite a ban in some parts of Russia during winter, the country’s share of the BTC hash rate remains high. However, the country has yet to launch a licensing framework for exchanges, leaving Russians dependent on offshore platforms.
Russia will, however, keep BTC out of its national wealth fund despite the ongoing global campaign kickstarted by President Donald Trump.
Vladimir Kolychev, the Deputy Minister for Finance, said that the government will not include any high-risk or volatile assets like BTC.
US, European authorities shut down top Russian exchange
Meanwhile, a coalition of authorities, led by the U.S., have shut down Garantex, a top Russian exchange that had become one of the most used platforms by money launderers, ransomware operators and other criminals.
Over the weekend, the U.S. government revealed that it had taken Garantex down. The U.S. Secret Service seized three of the exchange’s websites and took down its servers and databases. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Justice Department were also involved in the operation, as were authorities from Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Estonia.
The DoJ also unveiled indictments against a Lithuanian national residing in Russia and a Russian national living in the UAE who allegedly led the operation. They are each charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum of 20 years behind bars.
According to DoJ documents, Garantex has been in operation since early 2019, and at that time, it became a favorite for criminals. It had allegedly processed at least $96 billion in digital asset transactions.
While it’s only now seizing the exchange’s assets and shutting it down, the U.S. government first issued sanctions against it in April 2022. The European Union also added the exchange to its sanctions package this month, the first time it had sanctioned a digital asset exchange.
Just a day before the seizure, Garantex revealed that Tether had blocked its wallets, which collectively held over $28 million in USDT, forcing it to suspend operations.
“We have bad news: Tether has entered the war against the Russian crypto market. We are fighting and will not give up. Please note that all USDT held in Russian wallets is now under threat,” the exchange said on its Telegram channel.
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