Bank of Russia Allows Exchanges to Open Organised Crypto Trading From 22 November, Once Their Rules Are Approved

Russian exchanges may start organised trading in cryptocurrencies from 22 November 2026, the Bank of Russia said on 11 November 2026, but each venue must first agree its trading rules with the central bank. The step comes from a Bank of Russia indication setting requirements for organised trading in digital currencies and digital rights, which the Ministry of Justice has registered. It sets out how exchanges must admit participants, keep records, calculate prices and report to the regulator, completing another piece of the market framework built under Russia's 2026 digital-currency legislation.

The instrument is Bank of Russia Indication No. 7438-U of 8 September 2026, which amends Bank of Russia Regulation No. 437-P of 17 October 2014 on the conduct of organised trading. According to the official PDF published on the Bank of Russia website, the Ministry of Justice registered it on 3 November 2026 under registration No. 89019. The text says it enters into force 10 days after its official publication, and the Bank of Russia's press release gives the resulting start date as 22 November 2026. The indication is signed by Governor Elvira Nabiullina.

What Exchanges Must Do Before and During Crypto Trading

The Bank of Russia's 11 November release lists the core obligations. Exchanges will have to register the participants in cryptocurrency trading, namely brokers, trust managers and central counterparties. They must keep registers of orders and deals and monitor the transactions carried out on their markets. They must also calculate four price indicators for each digital currency: the current price, the weighted-average price, the market price and the closing price. Information on the course and results of trading is to be submitted to the Bank of Russia in the same way exchanges already report on other assets.

The registered text fills in the detail. It adds digital currencies and digital rights to the parts of Regulation No. 437-P that govern the suspension of trading, including a new ground for suspending organised trading when the circulation of a digital currency or digital right ends. It defines the weighted-average price of a digital currency as the volume-weighted average of deal prices over a given period, excluding repo deals, and says the market price is calculated for each trading day from deals concluded in the main trading session on the basis of at least one non-addressed order on the organiser's standard terms.

The reporting fields are also extended. For deals in digital currencies, exchanges must report a unique identifier that identifies both the digital currency and the information system, organised outside Russian law, in which it was issued, along with the number and volume of contracts, the best bid and offer, and the highest and lowest prices. For digital rights, reports must carry the issuer, the issuer's taxpayer number, the unique number of the decision to issue the rights and the taxpayer number of the information-system operator. Repo reporting is amended along the same lines.

The Bank of Russia stressed the order of steps: trading may begin from 22 November, but only after an exchange has agreed the rules for that trading with the regulator. The release does not say whether any exchange has already had its rules agreed.

How It Fits the Wider Russian Framework

The indication is grounded in Federal Law No. 325-FZ of 21 November 2011 on Organised Trading and in Federal Law No. 283-FZ of 4 August 2026, which amended a range of Russian laws alongside the new framework for digital currencies and digital rights. It is the second Bank of Russia crypto-market instrument to reach the force stage this month. On 6 November the central bank announced that Indication No. 7441-U, which lists Bitcoin, Ethereum Ether and USD Tether as the cryptoassets available to non-qualified investors and caps their purchases at 300,000 roubles a year per intermediary, takes effect on 17 November 2026.

Together the two instruments define what may be traded and how an exchange must run the market. The asset list governs what exchanges may admit to public circulation from 17 November, while Indication No. 7438-U governs the conduct of organised trading from 22 November. Earlier, on 29 October 2026, the Bank of Russia entered the first self-regulatory organisation for digital-currency exchange organisations and digital depositories into its register of financial-market self-regulatory organisations.

Who Is Affected and What Comes Next

The direct addressees are licensed exchanges that want to list digital currencies or digital rights, together with the brokers, trust managers and central counterparties that will take part in their crypto markets. For investors, access continues to run through these intermediaries, subject to the testing, risk disclosure and purchase limits set by the separate investor rules.

The next practical milestone is market launch. Moscow Exchange said on 2 November 2026 that it plans to let financial-market participants trade digital currencies from 1 December 2026, starting with pilot deals in BTC, ETH and USDT on its stock-market systems, with clearing by the National Clearing Centre. Whether that date holds depends on the Bank of Russia agreeing the exchange's trading rules under the new indication.