Russia’s primary equities marketplace is setting its sights on the offshore digital asset sector. Beginning on December 1, the Moscow Exchange will enable Russian citizens to buy and sell bitcoin, ether, and USDT directly through the same interface utilized for Sberbank and Gazprom equities.
The trading platform stated on Monday that market sessions will operate from 06:50 until 23:50 Moscow time, aligning precisely with its standard equity trading schedule. The National Clearing Centre will handle trade clearing, providing same-day or next-day settlement alongside swap mechanisms designed for liquidity control.
The trading platform and its affiliated clearing house are both subject to American penalties. The United States Treasury designated the Moscow Exchange and the National Clearing Centre in June 2024, subsequently providing wind-down authorizations for interactions involving them.
USDT, the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin included in the rollout, is managed by Tether, an entity known for blacklisting addresses appearing on the Treasury’s penalty roster.
Retail participation features specific restrictions, nonetheless. Non-professional traders must successfully complete an assessment and are restricted to an annual cryptocurrency purchase ceiling of 300,000 rubles, approximately $3,700, via any single broker. Accredited sophisticated investors face no such restrictions.
First Deputy Chairman Anatoly Popov informed TASS during the final days of August that trading volume under the nation’s updated digital asset regulations could scale up to 4 trillion rubles, equivalent to roughly $49 billion based on prevailing exchange rates during its initial twelve months.
During February, Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov estimated the daily transaction volume of Russian digital assets at 50 billion rubles. Sberbank’s projected first-year total translates to roughly 11 billion rubles daily, indicating that the majority of volume will continue flowing through foreign platforms and peer-to-peer marketplaces.
CoinDesk has reached out to Tether to inquire how its asset-freezing protocol will affect USDT balances maintained via the Moscow Exchange’s clearing subsidiary.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/11/04/u-s-sanctioned-moscow-exchange-to-list-bitcoin-and-tether-s-usdt-in-december.
