Russia Sets November 22 Start for Conditional Crypto Trading

By Nathan Brooks

Russian crypto exchanges can start trading no earlier than November 22, provided the Bank of Russia concurs with each venue's trading arrangements, according to the central bank's November 11 notice. The notice sets an operating framework, not a venue-by-venue launch schedule.

A separate November 17 ordinance covers Bitcoin, Ether and USDT for non-qualified investors, with a 300,000-ruble annual purchase ceiling through a single intermediary.

What changes on November 22?

The Ministry of Justice has registered the ordinance. Exchanges must meet five continuing obligations before operating under it:

• Register trading participants.
• Maintain records of orders and transactions.
• Monitor trading activity.
• Calculate specified prices.
• Report trading information to the Bank of Russia using procedures applied to other assets.

For an exchange, these duties turn permission into an ongoing supervisory relationship. Participant records establish who trades; order and transaction records show what occurred; price calculations and reporting give the central bank a basis for inspection. The notice names no completed launch at a particular exchange and provides no trading-volume forecast.

The report cautioned: "An effective date creates a legal opening; it does not show that every exchange is technically ready or that every prospective customer can place an order on the same morning."

Why does November 17 matter separately?

The central bank's November 6 asset-eligibility announcement set November 17 as the effective date for an ordinance covering Bitcoin, Ether and USDT. That measure governs which assets non-qualified investors may access and the conditions attached to purchases; it does not address how exchanges must organize trading.

Non-qualified investors face an annual purchase ceiling of 300,000 rubles through a single intermediary. For an investor, the practical translation is an annual purchasing budget through one provider, not a fresh allowance for every transaction. Qualified investors face neither the asset-list restriction nor the purchase cap.

The central bank says investors in both groups must pass the relevant test and familiarize themselves with crypto investment risks before transacting. Read together, the two notices create separate regulatory steps: one sets asset and investor conditions, while the other organizes trading.

How does domestic permission affect platform access?

Domestic permission and international platform access remain separate. NewsBTC previously reported KuCoin's withdrawal from Russia and Belarus, with affected users' account notices determining their closure deadlines. A Russian venue's permission does not amend another company's service terms, and KuCoin's exit does not establish when a domestic alternative will be usable.

The report also warned: "A national regulatory opening can exist alongside changes at individual international exchanges." NewsBTC separately reported VTB's conditional plans for direct crypto trading in December 2025. That proposal helps explain institutional interest in domestic access, but it does not show that VTB has launched a service under the latest rules.

What does this change for traders and exchanges?

It changes the legal and compliance basis for access, not the operating details of any particular service. Traders still need to establish four facts before committing funds: which intermediary they use, which assets it supports, how they fund the purchase and where the platform holds their holdings.

A domestic launch date does not answer those questions for a specific service.

Exchanges face a more concrete change. Reliable participant registration, order and transaction records, trading monitoring, specified price calculations and central-bank reporting become conditions of operating under the ordinance, rather than optional compliance work after launch.

What evidence will show that trading has started?

The new rules create a route, not a measure of demand. An expanded path into Bitcoin could attract additional buyers or shift activity from another channel. Permission alone cannot distinguish those outcomes or establish how much fresh capital arrives.

The next evidence will come from venue-specific launch notices, completed onboarding and observable trading activity. Until those signals appear, November 22 remains a conditional regulatory starting point, and each intermediary's service date remains the deadline that matters for users.

For traders, the operative deadline remains each intermediary's actual service date, not the national November 22 headline.