Russian Crypto Chronicles

Russia has moved from banning crypto to building a regulated framework for it, a shift underscored by the 2018 case in which employees at the Sarov nuclear research center were caught mining on institute computers. The central bank warned against bitcoin as early as January 2014 and in January 2022 proposed banning domestic issuance, trading, exchange and mining, while the finance ministry pushed for oversight instead; Vladimir Putin told both sides to agree. Sanctions after February 2022 cut seven Russian banks from SWIFT, pushing the yuan's share of Russian export settlements from 13% in January 2023 to 35% by September, and secondary-sanction risk later slowed Chinese bank payments. Russia legalized crypto for foreign-trade settlements in August 2024, and by December Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said firms were paying internationally with bitcoin, including coins mined domestically. Mining, estimated by Putin at about 16 billion kWh a year, roughly 1.5% of national power use, gained formal rules in November 2024 via a Federal Tax Service registry, with reporting from 2025. Watch whether the central bank's registry for exchanges and custodians, due in 2026, and regional power constraints such as the Irkutsk mining ban through 2031, shape how far the sector institutionalizes.