Russia’s central bank intends to comprehensively study the country’s cryptocurrency market and compile its findings within months.
The authority will be collecting detailed information from market participants to determine how much Russians are invested in crypto assets and derivatives.
Russian central bank to carry out massive crypto survey
The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) is going to conduct a large-scale survey of the Russian crypto assets market, media reports unveiled, citing official documents.
Russia’s main financial regulator plans to study cryptocurrency investments and lending in the sector in early 2026. Commenting on the matter, the bank elaborated:
“The survey is being conducted to assess the investments of supervised organizations in cryptocurrencies, including for risk hedging purposes, as well as the volume of their lending to crypto companies as of Jan. 1, 2026.”
The study is scheduled to take place in January and February, according to the materials quoted by the news agencies TASS and Interfax, as well as the Russian crypto news outlet Bits.media.
Banking and financial institutions are expected to submit the data required by the monetary authority by Feb. 1.
The CBR clarified that it will determine the group of participants in the upcoming survey after gathering all the necessary information.
Meanwhile, the central bank is also examining investments in digital financial assets (DFAs) with returns tied to the prices of cryptocurrencies, Interfax noted in its report.
Responsible entities are obliged to submit this type of data on a monthly basis, no later than the 10th working day of each month following the surveyed period.
Under a dedicated law, which went into force in early 2021, Russia defined DFAs as representing tokenized real-world assets.
Issued on private rather than public blockchains, and only by CBR-authorized platforms, they are different from decentralized cryptocurrencies but can be based on their value.
Russia’s regulated crypto market remains reserved for a few investors
The Bank of Russia, a long-term opponent to crypto legalization, allowed in March a limited group of “highly qualified” investors to access and transact with cryptocurrencies within the framework of an “experimental legal regime.”
Both companies and wealthy Russians can fall into that category. To obtain the status, private individuals need to prove investments in securities and deposits exceeding 100 million rubles, or annual income from the past year of at least 50 million rubles (over $1.2 million and $600,000, respectively).
Then, in May, the regulator permitted financial institutions to offer the same investors derivatives providing indirect exposure to crypto assets. Established market players, including Russia’s giant Sberbank and the Moscow Exchange, were quick to tap into the new market.
In September, the regulator signaled its intentions to let investment funds acquire crypto derivatives in 2026, admitting capital management companies to the growing industry, which is currently dominated by brokers.
For now, cryptocurrencies and crypto-based instruments remain legally available only to financial firms and rich Russian citizens. The CBR wants to keep it that way, presumably to protect ordinary Russians from the risks of crypto.
However, the Ministry of Finance, which has maintained a more liberal stance on the matter, recently suggested easing the requirements for qualified investors in order to widen the regulated access to crypto assets and derivatives. The proposal is yet to be approved by the central bank.
