Russia says investors bear losses if foreign stablecoins freeze

At the Moscow Financial Forum on Sept. 23, 2026, Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov said investors will bear losses if foreign stablecoin issuers freeze assets for reasons outside a Russian licensed depository’s control. He described the statement as a clarification of liability under the country’s new digital asset law and did not report any new freeze.

The remarks relate to Federal Law No. 282-FZ, signed Aug. 4, 2026 and effective Sept. 1. The law establishes a licensing regime for crypto intermediaries and requires retail trading to run through licensed platforms. Non-qualified investors must pass a suitability test before trading and face an annual purchase cap of 300,000 rubles per intermediary. Russian tax residents must report crypto activity conducted outside the domestic regulated infrastructure to the Federal Tax Service, with reporting obligations scheduled to start in 2027. The Bank of Russia is preparing 27 subordinate regulatory acts and expects some regulated participants to enter the system before the end of 2026.

Chebeskov set out the duties of licensed depositories as accurate recordkeeping, safe custody, correct transfers and prevention of unauthorised use of client assets. He said those duties stop where a depository’s control ends, and losses caused by actions or laws beyond that control fall to investors. At the forum he stated: “The loss therefore sits with the investor, and the state will not compensate it.”

The deputy minister estimated the market at about 20 million users holding roughly 3.7 trillion rubles, or about $44 billion, with daily crypto transaction volume near 50 billion rubles, roughly $595 million. He did not specify how much of those holdings are in stablecoins or how much runs through foreign versus domestic infrastructure.

The law limits the list of stablecoins available on regulated Russian platforms to a single token, USDT. USDT is issued and governed under foreign law and includes controls that allow issuers to block specific addresses. In 2025, Tether froze assets linked to the sanctioned exchange Garantex, an example cited in discussions of freeze risk.

Russian authorities have allocated legal risk through licensing and disclosure requirements rather than by mandating domestically issued dollar‑pegged tokens.