Sberbank Estimates Russian Legal Crypto Trading Could Reach $46B in First Year

Russian analysts have begun estimating the impact of crypto trading legalization after the Bank of Russia approved a draft regulation allowing investors to buy crypto assets legally through brokers, effective September 1.

Sberbank Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board Anatoly Popov said expectations for trading volumes in the first year of the new regime are conservative, because the bank expects only a small share of existing crypto activity to move to regulated brokers. That makes the Bank of Russia’s rules not just a market-opening measure, but also a test of how much existing activity can shift from informal channels into supervised trading.

Even so, Sberbank expects regulated trading to reach at least 4 trillion rubles ($46.43 billion) in the first year, before gradually rising to about 7.5 trillion rubles ($87.06 billion) by 2029 as investors shift to the official exchange system.

“According to Finance Ministry data as of February, the daily volume of cryptocurrency transactions in Russia is around 50 billion rubles, or roughly 18 trillion rubles a year. SberCIB Investment Research analysts have a fairly conservative estimate: in the first year after legalization, around 20% of this volume, or 3.5-4 trillion rubles a year, will be traded on exchanges. This figure could rise to 4.75-5.25 trillion rubles by 2028 and to 7.5 trillion rubles by 2029,” Popov told TASS.

Popov said one of the main factors limiting these figures, aside from continued use of unregistered cryptocurrency exchange services, is the cap the law places on crypto investments and the limited options available through official channels, which may not meet the needs of some investors. Those constraints help explain why the new regime is being framed around controlled access rather than broad liberalization.

Non-qualified investors can buy up to 300,000 rubles, or about $3,800, in crypto per year through a single licensed intermediary after passing a risk awareness test. The Bank of Russia has justified that limit. Although the central bank has recently eased the requirements to become a qualified investor, the threshold is still limited to investing up to 3 million rubles, or about $38,000, which reduces the ability of such investors to trade large volumes.

Only Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Tether (USDT) have the Bank of Russia’s approval for trading on official Russian exchanges, leaving other altcoins outside the permitted list. Exchanges can register by July 1, 2027, after a transition period, giving the market a longer runway to adapt as brokers, exchanges, and investors start operating under the new framework.