The Russian population’s investments in domestic cryptocurrency derivatives are growing, but pose no risk for the country’s financial system, according to the Bank of Russia.
Most individual investors maintain relatively small portfolios, and the bulk of the trading volume comes from fewer large participants in the nascent market, the regulator has found.
Russian households invest 3.7 billion rubles in crypto derivatives since May
Household investments in Russian crypto-based derivative instruments amount to around 3.7 billion rubles (almost $47.3 million), the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has estimated.
The monetary authority has published the figures from the second and third quarters of 2025 in its periodic report on the state of the Russian financial market.
According to the latest edition of the bank’s Financial Stability Review, the current level of this type of investment, which it permitted earlier this year, does not pose systemic risks.
Part of the total is represented by Russian bonds, the yield of which is tied to the value of digital assets, the authors of the study elaborated, further detailing:
“The volume of investments in such bonds by individuals and non-profit organizations serving the public amounted to 1.6 billion rubles as of the beginning of October. The volume of bonds outstanding at par value is only 2.9 billion rubles.”
Investments in crypto-linked futures contracts made by private individuals on the Moscow Exchange (MOEX), Russia’s largest stock market, are also minimal, the central bank remarked.
As of the beginning of last month, the volume of net positions in this case reached 2.1 billion rubles (close to $27 million), reveals the document, quoted by the Russian news agency Interfax on Thursday.
The majority of the 1,900 investors trading the crypto futures have small portfolios of up to 500,000 rubles (approx. $6,400), the CBR pointed out.
At the same time, the main contributors to the overall investment volume are the few large players, whose open positions exceeded 100 million rubles (nearly $1.28 million), the Bank of Russia highlighted.
Volume of Russian transactions on foreign crypto exchanges declines
The Bank of Russia has been gradually opening towards crypto investments this year. In March, the regulator proposed an “experimental legal regime” (ELR) for cryptocurrency transactions.
Besides allowing Russian companies to make cross-border payments, bypassing sanctions, the arrangement gave a small group of “highly qualified” investors access to crypto assets and their derivatives.
In May, the authority permitted Russian financial firms to offer the same category of investors derivative products tracking foreign crypto funds and indices, with more recent plans to add products directly linked to digital currencies and let mutual funds invest in crypto.
Discussions have recently started with the Finance Ministry in Moscow on admitting more investors to the country’s young crypto derivatives market by easing the requirements that currently involve high thresholds for annual income and other investments.
Meanwhile, the CBR has also established that the volume of transactions made by Russian citizens on foreign crypto exchanges dropped by 18% in Q2 and Q3 of 2025 over the previous two quarters, the business news outlet RBC noted in its report on the findings in the financial stability assessment.
The average monthly balance of Russians’ funds on over a dozen popular crypto trading platforms, including global leaders such as Binance and Bybit, decreased by 20% during the examined period, to 933 billion rubles.
The bulk of the total, equal to almost $12 billion, was held in Bitcoin (BTC), 62%, followed by Ethereum (ETH), with 16%, while other coins accounted for 22%.
At the same time, Russian traffic to these websites fell by 28%, to 83.4 million visits. The Bank of Russia notes that the drop is in line with global trends as Russia’s share has remained unchanged at 4.2%.
This scale of crypto trading on domestic exchanges remains a very distant possibility as Russia’s main financial regulator maintains its strong opposition to legalizing the free circulation of decentralized digital money in the nation’s economy.
