Russia Just Passed Its Own Crypto Clarity Act While the US Senate Keeps Stalling

Russia now has a comprehensive crypto trading law. The United States, one year after the House passed its own market structure bill by a landslide, still does not. That gap closed in a single week, and this week it got a detail almost too on the nose to be true: the US Senate cleared its floor for a Russia sanctions bill and pushed the crypto bill back again.

What exactly did Russia just pass?

On 21 July 2026, Russia's State Duma completed the second and third readings of bill No. 1194918-8, titled "On Digital Currency and Digital Rights." The vote was not close. It cleared with 340 in favour, after a first reading in April that carried 327 of 340 deputies.

The core provisions:

• Crypto is legally property. Holders get judicial protection in courts, bankruptcy proceedings and divorce settlements, and that protection applies even to assets that were never declared to the authorities.
• Licensed intermediaries only. Exchanges, brokers, custodians, asset managers and exchange service providers go into a single registry supervised by the Bank of Russia. Banks will be required to reject transfers to providers outside it.
• Cross-border settlement is allowed, domestic payment is not. Russian companies can settle foreign trade in crypto. Paying for coffee in Bitcoin inside Russia stays illegal, and the ruble remains sole legal tender.
• Hard retail caps. Non-qualified investors are limited to roughly 300,000 rubles per year, about $3,800, per licensed intermediary. Qualified investors get up to 3 million rubles.
• A liquidity filter on listings. Only assets with an average market cap above 5 trillion rubles, around $64 billion, and average daily volume above 1 trillion rubles, around $12.8 billion, over the prior two years automatically qualify for trading.

The bill still needs Federation Council approval, which has a 14-day window, then Putin's signature within a further 14 days. Main provisions are slated for 1 September 2026, with the licensed-intermediary regime fully enforced from 1 July 2027. Notably, the digital ruble rollout is scheduled for the same 1 September date, so Moscow is launching its CBDC and its private-crypto framework on one timeline.

… Continue reading the full article at the original source below.