Russian parliament adopts digital currency bill on first reading

Russia’s lower house approved a first-reading bill that legalizes cryptocurrencies but places tight controls with the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) as chief regulator. The CBR will license intermediaries, whitelist which coins can be traded, set banking requirements, and may ban transactions for certain coins. Retail investors will be allowed to buy crypto via licensed intermediaries after the law takes effect (targeted by July 1, 2026), but non-qualified investors face testing and proposed annual limits (CBR suggested 300,000 rubles). Only highly liquid, long-lived assets meeting strict criteria (e.g., >5 trillion rubles market cap, >1 trillion rubles daily volume, 5+ years trading history) — likely including BTC, ETH, SOL, BNB and TRX — would be admitted initially. The framework may reduce regulatory uncertainty and bring activity onshore, but its stringent controls, criminal penalties and limited coin list create mixed market implications for adoption, liquidity and trading in Russia’s crypto market.