Under the clarifications issued by the Bank of Russia, individuals will be able to trade digital currencies only through regulated intermediaries: brokers, asset managers, licensed crypto exchanges, trading platforms and depositories. The list of permitted operators is set out in the law "On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights," according to TV Rain.
The Central Bank separately prohibited transferring cryptocurrency to a personal non-custodial wallet. Ekho described the measure as a ban on withdrawing money from a card and keeping it at home.
The State Duma passed the law "On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights" in July. It requires individuals to pay personal income tax on income from cryptocurrency transactions, and legal entities to pay profit tax, TV Rain reported.
Ekho noted that cryptocurrency has become an important tool for circumventing sanctions. By its estimate, up to a quarter of Russia's foreign trade goes through crypto and special intermediaries, and that market, as the outlet reported together with Proekt, involves security service officers, oligarchs and state banks, for whom the law makes an exception.