Crypto trading in Russia has reached roughly $648 million a day, according to Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov. Speaking at the Alfa Talk conference, he said millions of citizens are already involved in the sector, with usage and savings measured in trillions of rubles. The scale is large. So is the gap between actual market activity and formal oversight.
Chebeskov put daily turnover at 50 billion rubles, or more than 10 trillion rubles a year. He said this flow is currently taking place outside state control. The figures point to broad crypto adoption inside Russia, while also showing that existing rules have not caught up with how people are already trading and holding digital assets.
Bank of Russia outlines legal route through exchanges and brokers
At the end of 2025, the Bank of Russia presented a concept for regulating cryptocurrency transactions. The proposal would allow trading through existing financial infrastructure, including exchanges and brokers, instead of creating a separate licensing system just for crypto venues. Both qualified and non-qualified investors would be able to participate, though the latter group would face restrictions.
Vladimir Chistyukhin, First Deputy Chairman of the central bank, said the authorities want to move the law during the State Duma’s spring session. He added that market participants would still need a transition period to obtain licenses and prepare internal documentation before launching operations on a legal basis.
Officials say Russian users pay $15B in fees to overseas platforms
Sergei Shvetsov, Chairman of the Moscow Exchange Supervisory Board, said Russians currently pay about $15 billion in fees each year to global crypto exchanges. He also estimated that annual commission revenue from crypto asset trading totals around $50 billion worldwide, with roughly one-third tied to Russian transactions.
That is why bringing crypto activity into regulated domestic infrastructure matters for local exchanges. Shvetsov said Moscow Exchange earns around $1 billion annually, and even a partial return of that $15 billion to the legal market would materially raise profitability for infrastructure organizations. He also said Moscow Exchange and other Russian exchanges are ready to enter the segment once the regulatory framework is officially published.
The message from Russian officials is clear: the market already exists at scale, and the policy effort is now focused on shifting that activity from loosely supervised channels into the country’s legal financial system.