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Moscow Exchange will open what it calls Russia’s first organized digital currency market on Dec. 1, listing bitcoin, ether and Tether’s USDT, according to Bitcoin.com News. The venue confirmed the plan in a Nov. 2 announcement that set out the trading infrastructure, settlement mechanics and retail restrictions accompanying the launch.
Bitcoin.com News reported that trading will run on the exchange’s existing stock-market systems, with the National Clearing Center (NCC) handling clearing. The exchange began pilot testing with professional participants in early October, executive Boris Blokhin said at the time, and said it could proceed under existing licenses without further regulatory approval.
Also read: Russia Ends Direct P2P Crypto Trading From July 1, 2027
Key facts
- Launch date is Dec. 1, with pilot transactions expanding as financial institutions and other participants complete onboarding.
- Initial assets are BTC, ETH and USDT, offerable in both address-based and addressless modes, with more international and Russian digital assets planned later.
- Trading hours are 6:50 a.m. to 11:50 p.m. Moscow time, matching the exchange’s regular securities schedule, with same-day (TOD) and next-day (TOM) settlement and swap transactions.
- Non-qualified investors must pass a knowledge assessment and are capped at 300,000 rubles (about $3,700) in annual purchases per broker.
- The market operates under Russia’s new crypto law, whose main provisions took effect Sept. 1.
Retail guardrails and a payments ban
Access splits by investor classification. Finance Magnates reported that qualified investors are not bound by the 300,000-ruble annual cap that applies to unqualified buyers. Cointelegraph noted that the underlying law permits regulated trading while keeping a ban on using cryptocurrency to pay for goods and services in Russia.
The September framework also saw Moscow Exchange introduce perpetual-style futures tied to five crypto indices, and the Bank of Russia allowed licensed forex dealers to offer bitcoin and ether CFDs to qualified investors with leverage capped at 1:10, per Finance Magnates. Those steps position the December venue as an extension of an existing regulated derivatives push rather than a standalone experiment.
Sanctions cloud the demand picture
Cointelegraph reported that Moscow Exchange and the NCC have been under US sanctions since June 2024, that the UK also sanctioned the exchange, and that the EU added it to its sanctions list in July 2026. Sergey Mendeleev, founder of cross-border payments platform Exved, told Cointelegraph he doubted the market would draw meaningful volume, saying neither the global nor local market would notice. He predicted wide bid-ask spreads that would make the offering unattractive and unprofitable for ordinary non-qualified investors, while holding out hope it could aid foreign trade. The UK sanctioned Mendeleev on May 26, Cointelegraph reported. Helen Partz contributed reporting for that outlet.
Volume expectations elsewhere are large but concentrated offshore. Bitcoin.com News cited Sberbank’s estimate that crypto trading under the new framework could reach at least 4 trillion rubles (about $46 billion) in its first year, with only around 20% of activity expected to flow through regulated exchanges.
Why it matters
Russia is trying to pull crypto activity that has long sat on offshore platforms and informal channels into supervised infrastructure, using a venue that already clears equities and derivatives. The retail cap and testing requirement give regulators a brake on household exposure, while professional and corporate users get settlement rails inside the domestic banking system — a contrast with the largely unregulated peer-to-peer market that preceded it. Whether that shift materializes depends heavily on sanctions friction and on pricing that can compete with venues traders already use. This is not financial advice, and crypto markets are volatile and uncertain.
What to watch
The Dec. 1 go-live will show how many institutions complete onboarding and how spreads compare with offshore venues during the first weeks. Separately, Cointelegraph’s related coverage flagged that Russia plans to ban direct peer-to-peer crypto trades starting July 2027, a deadline that will shape where remaining activity migrates.
Reported by Bitcoin.com News.
Sources: Bitcoin.com News, Cointelegraph, Finance Magnates