The Russian Finance Ministry is actively working to make cryptocurrency trading more accessible to ordinary citizens by proposing to lower strict income and wealth requirements currently in place. Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on September 3, Finance Ministry Financial Policy Director Alexey Yakovlev confirmed that reducing entry barriers is under discussion.
Currently, only "especially qualified investors" with either 100 million rubles ($1.23 million) in securities and deposits or 50 million rubles ($615,753) in annual income can participate in Russia's experimental legal regime (ELR) for organized crypto trading. Yakovlev stated: "We believe these criteria can be adjusted downwards. It's being discussed now." He emphasized that limiting participation to a "super-small layer of society" undermines the pilot program's purpose.
The ELR was created in March 2025 as a three-year testing ground for permanent crypto rules. This development follows President Vladimir Putin's order last year for the Finance Ministry and Central Bank to reach a compromise on crypto regulation. Despite the Central Bank's continued opposition to decentralized currencies and its March 2025 recommendation to restrict all crypto transactions to the ELR framework, the regulator did permit qualified investors to buy crypto-based products like Bitcoin futures in May 2025, resulting in $16 million in purchases within a month.
Russians are believed to hold more than $25 billion in digital assets despite limited legal options, with most purchases occurring on foreign platforms due to the absence of centralized domestic exchanges. The proposed changes could significantly broaden participation in Russia's digital asset market, aligning with the country's accelerating turn toward digital assets, including cross-border Bitcoin settlements and state-backed mining initiatives.
