State Duma readies final vote on sweeping Russian crypto legislation

Anatoly Aksakov, who chairs the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, confirmed that the legislative package is ready for final consideration. The bill establishes clear boundaries for market participants, specifically categorizing investors into two tiers. Non-qualified individuals would face an annual purchase cap of 300,000 rubles, roughly $3,800, with a 100,000-ruble limit on foreign transfers. Qualified investors, by contrast, would be permitted to purchase up to 3 million rubles in digital assets, with transfer thresholds set at 1 million rubles.

The framework seeks to pull decentralized trading into a structured environment overseen by the Bank of Russia. While domestic retail payments remain prohibited, the bill carves out significant space for international trade. Companies engaged in import and export operations are expected to gain broad legal latitude to utilize digital currencies for cross-border settlements, a move intended to bypass traditional financial bottlenecks. Lawmakers recently refined the draft by removing a controversial requirement for users to disclose specific wallet addresses, shifting the focus instead toward reporting transaction volumes and account balances.

Following a series of delays caused by inter-agency coordination, the government now eyes September 1, 2026, as the implementation date for the new rules. If the bill clears the State Duma on Tuesday, it will move to subsequent stages of the legislative process before becoming law. The initiative arrives as authorities grapple with an estimated 50 billion rubles in daily domestic crypto trading, much of which currently occurs outside established regulatory oversight.