Russia's crypto user base reaches 20 million with $44 billion in holdings

Around 20 million people in Russia use cryptocurrencies and they keep more than $44 billion worth of coins, according to the country’s finance ministry.

The federal government in Moscow expects their number to grow by another 10 million in 2027, the first year after transactions with digital assets were legalized.

20 million Russians use crypto with 50 billion rubles in daily turnover

Approximately 20 million residents of the Russian Federation are using cryptocurrencies, the nation’s Deputy Minister of Finance Ivan Chebeskov revealed.

Experts estimate that Russian citizens’ total crypto investments currently stand at 3.7 trillion rubles (over $44 billion), he further detailed in an interview with TASS.

Also quoted by the business news portal RBC, Chebeskov noted:

“This amount includes direct holdings of digital currencies as well as certain financial products linked to them.”

The volume of cryptocurrency transactions in Russia reaches an average of 50 billion rubles per day (nearly $600 million), the top finance ministry official told the news agency.

This figure was first announced in February of this year, as reported by Cryptopolitan, when Russian authorities were preparing to regulate the country’s growing market for digital assets.

Since then, coin-related transactions like investment, trading and exchange have been legalized with a dedicated bill, “On Digital Currency and Digital Rights,” which entered into force on September 1.

The legislation, Moscow’s first attempt at comprehensive cryptocurrency regulation, was passed by both houses of parliament in July, with some delay, and signed by President Vladimir Putin in early August.

Russia set to issue its first crypto licenses by the end of 2026

The law creates the legal basis for the licensing of crypto exchanges, establishment of digital depositories and the provision of relevant services by intermediaries, including banks and brokers.

The first participants in the organized crypto market may be registered and licensed by the end of 2026, Central Bank of Russia’s Deputy Governor Vladimir Chistyukhin said this week.

The only crypto activity that had already been recognized as a legitimate business and regulated accordingly was Bitcoin mining, under a separate framework enforced in November 2024.

Operations with “digital financial assets” (DFAs) issued on private blockchains, such as tokenized securities, for example, were legalized with a dedicated law which came into effect in January 2021.

Moscow expects 10 million new crypto users in 2027

Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov also shared his department’s projections for the future growth in the number of cryptocurrency owners in Russia.

He told TASS that around 10 million citizens of the country could become cryptocurrency users next year, as regulations take effect and the market develops.

Some investors are currently using existing, yet to be licensed domestic platforms, while others rely on foreign infrastructure.

That makes it hard to produce an exact count, Chebeskov noted, and to predict how many of them will become visible to the Russian state.

Speaking at the Moscow Financial Forum 2026 on Monday, he highlighted that Russian residents have more than 10 million crypto wallets abroad.

Chebeskov made it clear that the executive power now wants to make them transfer these assets to Russia’s regulated ecosystem. Quoted by RBC, he elaborated:

“We spoke with foreign exchanges … and found that at least 10 million wallets belonging to Russian citizens exist within foreign infrastructure. So, there is indeed a degree of competition for these clients, and the goal is to bring them into our infrastructure.”

Both Russian companies and private individuals have been increasingly using cryptocurrencies to circumvent fiat restrictions imposed on their country as part of sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

Under the new rules, non-professional investors will be able to buy up to 300,000 rubles’ worth of digital assets annually per intermediary and transfer coins to wallets hosted abroad.

While self-hosted and foreign wallets have not been explicitly prohibited, transactions within Russia’s jurisdiction can be legally conducted only through authorized service providers.

The cryptocurrency must be stored by registered depositories and cross-border transfers can be made exclusively to wallets hosted by regulated foreign platforms working with a licensed local entity.

Tax residents are obliged to report transactions involving addresses that are not administered by domestic depositories to the Federal Tax Service (FNS), Chebeskov emphasized.

These digital depositories will not be held responsible for the loss of assets frozen by foreign issuers, he warned. This has previously happened with stablecoin holdings.

Tether’s U.S. dollar-pegged USDT is among the top three most liquid and capitalized cryptos that ordinary Russians will be permitted to acquire, the other being Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

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