The Central Bank of Russia proposed to allow banks and brokerage firms to obtain licenses for cryptocurrency trading

According to market news, Russia is planning to fully incorporate cryptocurrency trading into a regulated "legal infrastructure" through legislative means, by authorizing commercial banks and brokers to lead digital asset operations and establishing a domestic compliance trading system that is highly isolated from global mainstream markets.

Elvira Nabiullina, the Governor of the Central Bank of Russia, proposed at the annual meeting of credit institutions to allow qualified commercial banks and brokerage firms to obtain cryptocurrency trading licenses through a filing process, utilizing their existing anti-money laundering (AML) systems to monitor the flow of funds, and limiting banks' risk exposure to such assets to no more than 1% of their capital.

According to a draft by the State Duma's Financial Market Committee, the new regulations are expected to be ready by July 1, 2026, aiming to change the current lack of transparency in the legal status of digital assets and guide decentralized P2P trading to regulated domestic platforms. Analysts point out that, with the deepening of EU and US sanctions against Russia, this move aims to create a "self-sufficient compliance internal circulation."