Russia's Central Bank establishes compliance requirements for digital depositories, including cryptocurrency transaction verification.
Regulation & Gov ·
Russia's Central Bank has finalized regulatory requirements for digital depositories that will store and account for cryptocurrency and digital financial assets on the country's organized market. These depositories face substantial capital mandates, with a minimum of 50 million rubles required for domestic operations, scaling to 100 million rubles for those serving foreign systems and 250 million rubles for settlement depositories. Beyond capital thresholds, digital depositories must maintain four registries—covering depositors, assets, transactions, and client accounts—and bear responsibility for verifying client transactions to detect suspicious activity, with each account holder assigned a unique 256-bit identifier.
The stringent requirements reflect the operational complexity and infrastructure costs involved in managing crypto assets. Digital depositories face restrictions not imposed on traditional depositories: they cannot count foreign instruments toward minimum capital calculations, face a 25 percent cap on real estate holdings (versus 10 percent for conventional depositories), and cannot include digital currency itself in capital calculations. Experts note that establishing such infrastructure may require investments reaching hundreds of millions of rubles, likely concentrating the market among larger players capable of funding secured data centers and backup facilities.
The regulatory framework takes effect September 1, 2026, when Russia's organized cryptocurrency market begins operations. Several aspects remain unfinalized, including whether market participants will build independent infrastructure or leverage existing platforms operated by digital financial asset systems, where capitalization currently ranges from 50–90 million rubles.