Russia's Duma clears bill letting ordinary investors buy crypto — with a 300,000-ruble annual leash

Russia's State Duma passed a crypto bill on Tuesday that, for the first time, brings digital-asset exchanges, custodians and brokers under formal state oversight and opens regulated buying to everyday retail investors, according to The Block, citing the state news agency TASS. It is not yet law.

Under the bill, intermediaries — exchanges, custodians, brokers — must join a special registry to operate legally, with existing platforms getting a roughly one-year grace period to complete registration, per TASS. Retail ("non-qualified") investors may buy the most liquid cryptocurrencies through those intermediaries after passing a knowledge test, capped at 300,000 rubles — about $3,900 — per year, per intermediary. The report did not specify which assets qualify. Qualified investors, who must also pass a test, face no caps and can buy any asset; prior trading experience can reportedly count toward qualified status.

Domestic crypto payments for goods and services stay banned — officially to protect the ruble's dominance — with carve-outs for foreign-trade settlement between Russians and overseas counterparties, crypto obtained through mining, and certain securities transactions. Banks must block transfers to recipients they suspect of running unauthorized exchanges.

The bill passed a first reading in April and was initially slated to take effect July 1; most provisions are now expected on Sept. 1. It still needs to clear the Federation Council and be signed by President Vladimir Putin.

Key facts

• Retail purchase cap: 300,000 rubles (~$3,900) per year, per intermediary, after a knowledge test (The Block, citing TASS).
• Qualified investors: no caps, any asset, knowledge test required; trading experience may count toward status (TASS via The Block).
• Intermediaries must join a state registry; ~1-year grace period for existing platforms (TASS).
• Domestic crypto payments remain banned; exceptions for foreign trade, mining, some securities deals (The Block).
• Passed first reading April 2026; most provisions targeted for Sept. 1, 2026; awaits Federation Council and Putin's signature (The Block).

The real-world read

Two things sit uneasily together. Russia is loosening the retail door it long kept shut — its central bank spent years resisting crypto trading — while keeping the domestic-payments ban to defend the ruble. The permissive part, foreign-trade settlement, tracks the story since 2024: after Western sanctions cut off conventional payment rails, Moscow began routing international trade through crypto under an experimental framework. Read the "landmark" framing with that in mind — this is as much a sanctions-workaround and tax-visibility play as a consumer-freedom one.

Caveats worth stating plainly: this rests on a single secondary account (The Block) sourced to TASS, a state-run agency, so the specifics — which tokens qualify, how "knowledge tests" work — come from an interested government narrator and aren't independently confirmed. And it isn't law yet. The July 1 date already slipped once.

Opinion, and whose

No forecasts or analyst takes were offered beyond the reported official rationale — that the payments ban protects the ruble. That reasoning is the Russian government's, attributed as such, not a settled fact.

Sources

• The Block (Kyle Baird), 2026-07-21 — the sole report here, citing TASS for the bill's provisions, grace period, caps and timeline. The Block discloses that Foresight Ventures is its majority investor and that exchange Bitget is a Foresight anchor LP; not evident in this coverage, but noted for transparency.
• TASS (state-run, via The Block) — primary attribution for the legislative details. State agency; treat as an interested source.

This is news, not financial advice.