Russians have roughly eight months left to trade Bitcoin with each other. On October 12, the Bank of Russia confirmed in updated guidance that peer-to-peer crypto deals between individuals will be illegal from July 1, 2027, closing the most common workaround in the country's crypto market.

The legal basis is Federal Law No. 282-FZ, "On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights," signed by President Vladimir Putin on August 4 and effective September 1. Article 30 lists the crypto operations residents may carry out without a licensed intermediary, and from July 2027 that list drops trades between individuals entirely.

After that date, residents may only trade crypto through, or directly with, companies that "organize the circulation" of digital currencies—mainly Bank of Russia-licensed brokers and crypto exchange organizations in its registry.

What does this change for ordinary holders?

Plenty. The regulator now says individuals cannot move crypto from a digital account to their own non-custodial wallet—meaning a wallet where the owner, not a company, holds the private keys. Person-to-person transfers through addresses run by a digital depository are off the table too, even to settle a trade.

Lending is restricted as well. Only brokers, trustees, exchange organizations and clearing houses can act as the lender in a crypto loan.

The rules strike at how Russians actually use crypto today. Since Binance sold its Russian business to CommEX in 2023, the standard route to stablecoins has been peer-to-peer: a buyer wires rubles to a seller's bank card and receives USDT in return. That model is exactly what disappears.

The enforcement side is concrete. From July 1, 2027, Russian banks must refuse clients trying to fund crypto wallets on foreign platforms, and won't accept rubles cashed out from those platforms, Andrei Tugarin, managing partner at GMT Legal, told Kommersant FM.

Who can buy what?

The new framework splits investors into two tiers:

• Non-qualified investors must pass a test and can buy up to 300,000 rubles (about $3,600) of crypto per year.
• Qualified investors face no cap.
• Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT are the only coins available to non-qualified buyers.

Sberbank moves first

Sberbank, Russia's largest lender, joined the central bank's register of crypto exchange organizations on October 12 and plans to launch its first crypto products on December 1, per Interfax. VTB and T-Invest Lab are also on the register.

Entry barriers are modest by institutional standards. Crypto exchange organizations must be Russian companies with at least 15 million rubles (about $179,000) in equity. Firms already operating can keep going without registration until the July 2027 deadline.

The law keeps its contradictions intact. Russians still cannot pay for goods and services with crypto at home, while crypto remains allowed in foreign trade settlements—a carve-out Duma budget committee deputy chair Kaplan Panesh openly described as a way of circumventing sanctions when the bill passed its first reading in April.

The practical effect is consolidation: crypto activity in Russia migrates from informal P2P channels into a handful of registered institutions, with Sberbank's December product launch as the first visible test of whether the new plumbing actually works.