The Moscow Exchange, Russia's largest bourse, plans to open cryptocurrency trading to clients starting in December and has already begun testing operations with professional market participants, a senior executive said last week. The planned launch would bring crypto trading onto the country's largest traditional trading venue roughly three months after the governing framework took effect.

“We are actively testing. We started a week ago,” Boris Blokhin, the exchange's senior managing director for sales and business development, told journalists on the sidelines of the Sber Investments forum, according to a Thursday Interfax report.

The exchange will work with a partner settlement digital depository, where market participants will open accounts. Blokhin added that the launch will not require any additional permits or licenses. The reported comments did not specify which cryptocurrencies would be available when trading opens.

JUST IN: Russia's Moscow Stock Exchange will allow its 40.1 million clients to invest in Bitcoin and crypto assets pic.twitter.com/ZJOxEPWNNv — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) October 12, 2026

The plan follows Russia's law on digital currencies and digital rights, which took effect in September and sets comprehensive rules for crypto in the country. Under the framework, trades can run through existing infrastructure such as exchanges, brokers and trust managers, while new players are also set to join, including crypto exchangers, where assets are bought and sold, and digital depositories, which record ownership.

Last month, Russia's largest bank, Sberbank, announced it had become the first in the country to be approved to custody bitcoin. The Bank of Russia gave it the green light for “digital currency record-keeping” and to facilitate the transfer of such assets, covering bitcoin and other, smaller cryptocurrencies. Together, the moves put Russia's largest bank and its largest bourse inside the same framework — one on the custody side, one preparing to host trading.

Russia's relationship with Bitcoin remains complicated. President Vladimir Putin in 2024 appeared to praise the original cryptocurrency. “For example, Bitcoin, who can ban it? Nobody,” he said at a forum at the time. The Kremlin, however, keeps a tight grip on what citizens can do with it. Using crypto as a form of payment has been illegal in Russia since 2022, and unqualified investors can buy bitcoin and stablecoins capped at 300,000 rubles ($3,556) a year through a single intermediary. Qualified investors can buy any cryptocurrency traded on exchange and over-the-counter markets, with no limit. How those tiers apply to the new exchange service has not been detailed in the reported comments.

In October, President Putin signed a law to set in stone the regulation of digital currencies and digital rights in the country. The exchange's December target now stands as the next milestone in that sequence.