Moscow Exchange to launch Bitcoin, Ether and USDT trading in December
Moscow Exchange plans to start trading Bitcoin, Ether and Tether’s USDT on 1 December, describing the move as Russia’s first organised digital-currency market. Pilot trades will begin as participants join. Deals will run on the exchange’s existing stock-market infrastructure and be cleared through the National Clearing Center (NCC), from 6:50 am to 11:50 pm Moscow time. The venue will initially support same-day and next-day settlement as well as swap transactions.
The launch follows a Russian crypto law whose main provisions took effect on 1 September. Regulated trading is allowed, but paying for goods and services with cryptocurrency remains banned. Non-qualified investors must pass a test before buying crypto and are limited to 300,000 rubles (about $3,700) in purchases per year per broker.
Moscow Exchange and the NCC have been under US sanctions since June 2024; the UK sanctioned the exchange at the same time, and the European Union listed it in July 2026. Sergey Mendeleev, founder of the cross-border payments platform Exved, told Cointelegraph he doubted the market would attract significant demand, arguing neither global nor local traders would notice a sanctioned venue. He compared it to Sberbank precious-metals accounts, where clients trade balances without taking physical metal, and warned of “absolutely outrageous spreads” that would make the offering unattractive for ordinary non-qualified investors. He saw more potential if importers and exporters could trade crypto directly with one another, but questioned whether another intermediary would compete in a market where traders haggle over differences as small as 0.05%. He still hoped it could become a breakthrough for foreign trade.
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