Central Bank of Russia hopes Russia's cryptocurrency bill will be passed in spring session - first deputy governor

MOSCOW. Feb 12 (Interfax) - The Central Bank of Russia hopes that the State Duma will approve a draft bill regulating Russia's cryptocurrency market in the spring session, CBR First Deputy Governor Vladimir Chistyukhin said.

"We, of course, alongside the government, would really like the bill to be passed in the spring session. I hope this could be a consensus decision," Chistyukhin said at the Digital Financial Assets and Digital Currencies forum.

"We think that a delegation from the Financial Action Task Force will come to us at some point in 2028, and I would like them to see us, in this sense, as a fully protected and developed state which has clearly defined its rules for working with cryptocurrencies, so that they won't be able to find any of the risks that they are concerned about here," he said.

Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov said that the draft bill could be submitted to the State Duma in March.

At the end of December last year, the CBR said that it had presented the government with a concept for regulating cryptocurrencies in Russia, proposing qualified investors be permitted to acquire cryptocurrency assets without restriction while limiting purchases by non-qualified investors to 300,000 rubles via one intermediary each year.

The CBR's concept allows cryptocurrency transactions to be conducted via existing infrastructure - exchanges, brokers and trustees will be able to operate on the basis of their current licenses. Other requirements will only be set for special depositaries and crypto exchanges.