The Central Bank of Russia has proposed allowing banks and brokerage firms to obtain cryptocurrency trading licenses.

PANews reported on March 6 that, according to Cryptopolitan, Russia is planning to legislate to fully integrate cryptocurrency trading into a regulated "legal infrastructure," establishing a domestic compliant trading system that is highly isolated from mainstream global markets by authorizing commercial banks and brokers to lead digital asset operations.

At the annual meeting of credit institutions, Elvira Nabiullina, Governor of the Central Bank of Russia, proposed allowing qualified commercial banks and brokerage firms to obtain cryptocurrency trading licenses through a registration process. This would allow them to monitor fund flows using their existing anti-money laundering (AML) system and limit banks' exposure to such assets to no more than 1% of their capital. According to a draft by the State Duma's Financial Market Committee, the new regulations are expected to be ready by July 1, 2026, aiming to change the current opaque legal status of digital assets and guide decentralized P2P transactions to regulated domestic platforms. Analysts point out that with the deepening of EU and US sanctions against Russia, this move is intended to create a "self-sufficient, compliant internal circulation."