Moscow Exchange Opens Crypto Trading on December 1 — With a 300,000 Ruble Cap

Russia's biggest stock exchange is about to start selling crypto. The Moscow Exchange says testing with professional traders is already underway ahead of a December 1 launch.

A December launch with no new licence

Boris Blokhin, the exchange's senior managing director for sales and business development, told journalists at the Sber Investments forum that testing had started about a week earlier. The venue will route trades through a partner settlement digital depository where participants open accounts, and it says its existing licence already covers the service, so no extra permits are needed.

The timing follows Russia's digital currency law, which took effect on September 1 and lets licensed domestic venues handle crypto. The central bank registered five digital depositories and four exchange operators on October 6.

What retail can actually buy

Ordinary investors get a short menu: Bitcoin, Ether and USDT, capped at 300,000 rubles a year through each intermediary. Everyone has to pass a test before trading, while qualified investors face no limit at all.

Paying with crypto inside Russia is still banned. The framework keeps that prohibition, even as exporters and importers are allowed to use digital assets for cross-border payments through intermediaries or wallets.

The number that matters

Sberbank estimates Russia's crypto volume will reach at least 4 trillion rubles in the first year — but only about 20% is expected to flow through regulated platforms. The other 80% stays on channels the new law does not touch.

That is the part worth watching. A domestic exchange opening its doors does not make Russian crypto activity suddenly visible; it makes a slice of it visible. Sberbank also became the first Russian bank cleared to custody bitcoin, so the same institutions that spent years warning about crypto are now building the rails for it.