Sberbank Crypto Trading Wins Bank of Russia Approval Ahead…
The Bank of Russia has added Sberbank to its register of cryptocurrency exchange providers, clearing the country’s largest lender to buy and sell digital currencies in its own name. Interfax reported the entry on 12 October, citing a statement on the regulator’s website, and the Sberbank crypto approval lands less than a week after the same bank joined the separate digital depository register.
Holding both registrations puts Sberbank crypto services on a different footing from the rest of the market. Eight other organizations sit on the exchange register, including VTB and T-Invest Lab, part of T-Technologies alongside T-Bank, while the depository register holds five players. VTB is the only other name on both lists.
The Bank of Russia Added Sberbank to a Nine-Name Exchange Register
Russia’s crypto law took effect on 1 September 2026, after President Vladimir Putin signed it in August, and the regulator spent the following weeks building the registers that decide who may operate. The first lists named four exchange operators and five custodians on 7 October, with Sberbank appearing only as a custodian at that point.
Nine names now sit on the exchange register, and entry on it allows a firm to trade digital currencies on its own account outside organized exchange venues, which is the permission Sberbank crypto trading needs to quote prices to its own customers rather than route them elsewhere. Banks have been able to apply to the central bank since 5 October, and some existing market participants can obtain a license on a notification basis within a single day. Officials had said in September that a regulated market could be running before the end of 2026, and the pace of registrations since has matched that timetable.
Custody Plus Exchange Gives Sberbank Both Sides of the Trade
A digital depository records who owns what and logs transfers between holders, while an exchange provider deals in the asset itself, so the two registrations do different jobs. Running both means Sberbank crypto customers can trade and have the resulting holdings recorded inside the same institution, without a third party sitting between the order and the ledger entry. The status “will allow the bank to provide services related to organizing the circulation of digital currency on interfaces which clients already use”, the lender said in comments carried by Interfax.
Alexander Vedyakhin, the bank’s first deputy chairman, said Sber plans to put the infrastructure in place and launch the digital depository by 1 December 2026. The bank is testing bitcoin, ether and tether in its app, though the central bank will set the final list of permitted coins, which leaves the Sberbank crypto launch menu outside the lender’s control.
Investor Takeaway
Sberbank holding both exchange and depository registrations from the Bank of Russia lets it keep the trade and the ownership record inside one institution, a structure few competitors in the nine-name register can match.
December 1 Puts Sberbank, VTB and Moscow Exchange on One Date
Sberbank intends to introduce its first products on 1 December through interfaces customers already use, which means SberBank Online, SberInvestments and SberBusiness rather than a standalone app. Boris Blokhin, senior managing director of Moscow Exchange, said on 8 October that the exchange plans to enable crypto trading from the same date, and VTB has its own rollout running through November and December.
Non-qualified investors may buy up to 300,000 rubles, roughly $3,500, of eligible cryptocurrencies a year through each intermediary, and only after passing a test. Qualified investors take the test but face no annual purchase cap, which means the Sberbank crypto order book will be shaped by how many clients clear the qualification bar. Crypto still cannot be used to pay for goods and services in Russia, and from July 2027 transactions must run through registered intermediaries, the deadline that turns these registers from an advantage into a requirement.
Sberbank Crypto Volumes Could Reach 4 Trillion Rubles in Year One
Deputy Chairman Anatoly Popov put first-year Russian crypto trading at about 4 trillion rubles, or roughly $46 billion, and described the projection to TASS as conservative. He also pointed to about 7.5 trillion rubles, near $87 billion, by 2029.
Popov said in August that Sberbank wants to accept bitcoin, ether and tether as loan collateral once the central bank permits those assets for public circulation, which would extend the Sberbank crypto business from trading into lending. Russian holdings were put at $44 billion in September, alongside an official warning that investors would bear the losses from any foreign stablecoin freeze, a risk that falls directly on Tether balances held through a sanctioned banking system.
Investor Takeaway
Popov’s 4 trillion ruble first-year estimate, about $46 billion, is the bank’s own conservative case and has not been tested against a live regulated market.