Russia Plans to Limit Retail Crypto Trading to Bitcoin, Ether and USDT

Russia’s central bank plans to restrict retail investors on regulated exchanges to three cryptocurrencies initially: Bitcoin, Ether and USDT, making Tether’s dollar-pegged stablecoin the sole stablecoin included in the proposed lineup.

Under the draft framework, non-qualified investors would be limited to purchasing up to 300,000 rubles, or roughly $3,600, in crypto each year through a single intermediary. Qualified investors would not be subject to this restriction.

The proposed whitelist provides additional clarity on legislation approved in July that is scheduled to permit regulated cryptocurrency trading from Sept. 1. The earlier law did not identify which digital assets would be available to retail participants. Crypto payments within Russia would continue to be prohibited.

Notably, the 300,000-ruble threshold would apply separately to each intermediary rather than covering an investor’s total cryptocurrency purchases. This could allow retail traders to gain greater overall exposure by using multiple brokers or exchanges.