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New legislation may help to take decentralised finance from a workaround for sanctions to a supervised payment rail, moving cross-border payments from a legal grey area, increasing stability and reducing costs.
The move to formally allow the use of cryptocurrencies in cross-border trade is designed to ease international payments for exporters and importers facing tightening sanctions and restricted access to traditional financial channels.
The submitted by the government to the State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian Parliament, on March 26, 2026, outlines a framework that would permit the use of digital currencies specifically for foreign trade settlements, while keeping crypto excluded from domestic payments.
Under the plan, crypto transactions would be conducted within a tightly controlled 鈥渆xperimental legal regime鈥, rather than as a full-scale liberalisation of the market. Oversight is expected to fall to the Central Bank of Russia, which would supervise authorized participants, set compliance standards and define the scope of permissible transactions.
The mechanism is designed to allow exporters and importers to settle contracts using digital assets. However, the legislation stops short of recognizing cryptocurrencies as legal tender, and their use inside Russia's domestic economy would remain prohibited.
A fundamental shift
The new Russian law on cryptocurrencies effectively moves cross-border settlements in cryptoassets out of a grey zone, according to Yaroslav Kabakov, an analyst with Moscow-based financial consultancy Finam.
This is because the bill is designed to create a regulated framework with licensed intermediaries, mandatory identification and transaction oversight, which will fundamentally reshape the economics of digital assets.
鈥淔or businesses, this creates an alternative to traditional banking channels, offering the potential to reduce fees by bypassing chains of correspondent banks and to speed up settlements from days to just hours,鈥 Kabakov told 天涯海角社区.
The new rules, he added, reduce dependence on established currency infrastructure.
Russian foreign trade companies have already been using cryptocurrencies for cross-border contract settlements for some time. The market capitalisation of A7A5, a ruble-pegged stablecoin, has been reported at around , placing it among the top 20 stablecoins globally by that metric in some rankings.
New payment landscape
In addition, the new law reshapes the competitive landscape by creating a regulated crypto infrastructure segment, primarily accessible to banks and large fintech players capable of meeting licensing requirements.
鈥淭his strengthens their position and drives market consolidation, while unregulated P2P schemes and smaller non-licensed participants are pushed out. Some foreign platforms that are unwilling or unable to comply with the new rules are also likely to exit the market," Kabakov said.
Overall, he noted, cryptocurrencies in Russia are shifting from a decentralised alternative towards integration within a controlled financial system. For companies, this means the emergence of a more stable and legally recognised channel for cross-border settlements, offering moderate cost reductions and faster transactions.
A legal collision
However, some of the advantages the new rules offer are offset by compliance requirements: transactions must pass through authorised operators, with know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) procedures and reporting obligations. This will introduce additional costs and effectively create a form of 鈥渜uasi-clearing鈥, Kabakov warned
As a result, crypto payments are not so much likely to become dramatically cheaper as more broadly comparable in cost to alternative fintech solutions, while offering greater speed and flexibility in conditions where access to conventional settlement systems is restricted.
Moreover, the new legislation could help with transactions between Russian residents outside Russian jurisdictions. Existing Russian laws require Russian financial institutions to block attempts to transfer funds to foreign platforms, Maxim Ryumyantsev, a Russian financial industry analyst, told 天涯海角社区.
However, the draft bill not only permits the use of foreign infrastructure for crypto transactions, but also allows deals between Russian residents 鈥 as long as the transaction does not involve Russian infrastructure.
Moreover, Ryumyantsev said, proceeds from the sale of cryptocurrency may officially be credited even to accounts in countries that do not have automatic information exchange with the Russian Federal Tax Service, which represents an unprecedented degree of flexibility.
Business set sights on offshores
Most retail transactions will likely migrate to offshore channels, especially in countries where Russians are already active, such as Belarus and Kyrgyzstan.
However, such an approach, although technically permitted, comes with certain legal risks for users.
鈥淚f cryptocurrency is outside the Russian-controlled framework, the protection of rights becomes significantly weaker,鈥 said Dana Vysotskaya, senior lawyer with the Moscow-based law firm Vetrov & Partners.
鈥淭he draft explicitly states that a resident's claims related to such crypto assets will be protected in court only if the individual has previously disclosed ownership and transactions to the state in accordance with tax reporting rules,鈥 Vysotskaya added.
鈥淥therwise, a problematic situation may arise: the asset exists, and the transfer took place, but legal protection in Russia becomes uncertain鈥.
More paperwork, higher costs
For those market players that favour operating fully legally, the introduction of a regulated framework for crypto-based cross-border payments is expected to significantly increase documentation and compliance requirements when using digital assets in settlement.
鈥淚t will no longer be sufficient to simply state in a contract 鈥榩ayment in USDT鈥 or 鈥榠n BTC鈥欌, Vysotskaya told 天涯海角社区.
In particular, she explained, Russian lawyers expect that safe practice will begin to require the specification of exact wallet addresses or procedures for their verification, the moment of fulfilment of the monetary obligation, the method of confirmation and the exchange rate or methodology for conversion for accounting and tax purposes, as well as the parties鈥 obligations to notify the Federal Tax Service.
The shift effectively brings crypto activity into the scope of formal financial regulation, turning exchange operators and custodians into fully supervised intermediaries under AML rules, Central Bank oversight and currency control.
According to Vysotskaya, this means heavier compliance duties, including customer verification, wallet screening, transaction monitoring, data retention and extensive reporting obligations 鈥 and consequently higher costs.
Overall, Russia鈥檚 move may be less a breakthrough for decentralised finance than the formal absorption of crypto into a tightly regulated financial perimeter.
What once functioned as a workaround for sanctions-era frictions is now being rebuilt as a supervised payment rail. However, the success of the reform will depend much on whether the authorities will be able to fine-tune the legislation to make the new conditions attractive to businesses.
