Russia’s Biggest Bank Is Building a Crypto Vault — But You Still Can’t Spend Your Coins There
Sberbank plans a crypto custody and trading system by December, but new rules keep everyday Russians locked out of paying with crypto.
Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, says it wants to have a full crypto custody and trading system running by December 1 this year. Think of it as the bank building its own digital vault — one that can hold, move and settle cryptocurrency for customers who are allowed to trade it under Russia’s new rules.
The plan, first reported by Interfax and covered by Blockonomi and CoinDesk, comes as a new Russian law regulating crypto trading, custody and settlement is set to take effect on September 1. A tougher phase, requiring every transaction to go through a licensed intermediary, kicks in from July 2027 — giving banks like Sberbank a runway to get their systems built before enforcement tightens.
What Sberbank is actually building
The bank’s planned “digital depository” will keep track of who owns what crypto and process most of those transactions off the actual blockchain — essentially an internal ledger rather than moving coins on-chain every time. Sberbank will also run “active wallets” so clients can deposit, withdraw and transfer funds through the bank itself.
This isn’t Sberbank’s first rodeo with digital assets. The bank already offers structured bonds linked to bitcoin to qualified investors, launched last year, and it completed a bitcoin-backed lending pilot in December with mining firm Intelion Data. The new custody system is being framed as the natural next step from those pilots.
Why most Russians still can’t just spend crypto
Here’s the catch that matters most for everyday holders: this system is not opening the door to using crypto like cash. Paying for goods and services with crypto inside Russia remains banned. Public exchange trading will only be available for cryptocurrencies that clear strict Bank of Russia bars — an average market capitalization above 5 trillion rubles (about $64 billion) and average daily trading volume above 1 trillion rubles (roughly $12.8 billion) sustained over two years. In practice, that shortlist likely means only the biggest names like Bitcoin qualify, at least for now.
“Qualified investors” — a regulatory category typically reserved for wealthier or more experienced traders — will get access to a wider range of digital assets than the general public. Regulators have also floated a narrow pilot letting ordinary retail investors buy crypto directly, but only under strict testing conditions and capped at 300,000 rubles (roughly $3,800) per intermediary each year.
Why it matters for crypto holders everywhere
Even if you’ve never set foot in Russia, this story is a useful data point on where global crypto regulation is heading: major banks building in-house custody rather than leaving crypto to independent exchanges. Russia has been steadily formalizing its crypto rules for a few years now — a 2024 law legalized mining and set up an experimental cross-border settlement regime, and in 2025 the Bank of Russia let qualified investors buy crypto-linked products for the first time.
A bank the size of Sberbank moving first on custody infrastructure could push other Russian lenders to follow suit in the coming months. For everyday crypto holders elsewhere, it’s another sign that traditional finance keeps building the plumbing for crypto — just with plenty of guardrails, gatekeeping and “not for retail yet” fine print attached.
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