Sberbank has operated under Western sanctions and been excluded from the SWIFT international payments network since 2022. Four years later, Russia’s largest bank is gaining a new route into financial markets as the Bank of Russia approves it to operate as a digital-asset custodian.
JUST IN: 🇷🇺 Russia has approved its largest bank, Sberbank, as a crypto custodian for Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT products.
RUSSIA IS GOING ALL IN ON CRYPTO!🚀
— Conor Kenny (@conorfkenny) October 7, 2026
The approval allows Sberbank to provide custody services for digital currencies and digital rights, including recording and transferring assets and giving customers access to the blockchain addresses where they are held. The bank plans to offer Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether’s USDT as its first crypto products. The move follows Russia’s new law on digital currencies and digital rights, which took effect on September 1 and created a formal framework for cryptocurrency trading through regulated exchanges, brokers and digital depositories.
READ ALSO: Russia Alfa-Bank Plans Crypto Services and Digital Asset Depository
Russia adds other organizations to the crypto custody
Sberbank is not alone in entering Russia’s regulated digital-asset custody market. The Bank of Russia said on October 6 that five organizations had been added to its digital-depository register, including Sberbank and VTB, marking an early expansion of the infrastructure needed for regulated crypto services.
Sberbank Deputy Chairman Anatoly Popov has previously outlined the bank’s expectations for the market, estimating that crypto trading in Russia could reach about 4 trillion rubles ($46 billion) in its first year and potentially rise to 7.5 trillion rubles by 2029. He has also said Sberbank is looking to expand crypto-backed lending to assets including Ethereum and USDT.
The development has drawn attention from crypto users on X. WAGMI argued that putting crypto in the custody of a state bank gives customers price exposure without the independence associated with controlling their own assets, pointing to the importance of self-custody. Another X user, Spear, highlighted the pace of Russia’s progress, saying the country had made significant advances in crypto regulation while attention remained focused on the US Clarity Act.
@cryptorover The world was focused on the Clarity Act and just look at the advancement that took place in Russia in last one month alone.
— SpearTrades (@speartrades_app) October 7, 2026
Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina has maintained a more cautious position, stressing that access to complex and volatile digital assets should reflect investors’ ability to understand the risks. The central bank retains authority over which crypto assets banks can offer and the conditions under which customers can access them.
With Sberbank and VTB among the first institutions approved for digital-asset custody, Russia is beginning to build a regulated banking layer around crypto. The model gives major financial institutions a role in holding and servicing digital assets while leaving the Bank of Russia with significant control over which products can reach customers.
Russia joins countries using USDT around banking restrictions
Russia is not the only country locked out of the normal financial system that has ended up leaning on USDT. Iran’s central bank bought 507 million dollars worth of USDT to slow the collapse of its currency, the rial, which had already fallen 43% against the dollar in a year.
Inside Venezuela, USDT has become so common that people simply call it “Binance dollars,” used for groceries, rent and salaries, while the country’s own currency loses value by the week. Nigeria shows the same pattern outside the context of formal sanctions, where strict limits on foreign currency access have pushed daily peer-to-peer USDT trading to around 56 million dollars.
Meanwhile, Sberbank has issued the country’s first crypto-backed loan, marking a milestone for the domestic digital asset and Bitcoin mining industry. The pilot transaction was extended to Intelion Data, one of Russia’s largest industrial Bitcoin miners, with the loan secured by the cryptocurrency the company had mined.
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