Russia to ban direct peer-to-peer crypto trades from July 2027

Russia plans to ban direct peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trades between individuals from July 1, 2027, forcing people to use authorised intermediaries instead, the Bank of Russia said in updated guidance reported by Cointelegraph.

What the central bank said

In guidance updated on Monday, the regulator made two points clear:

• Direct P2P exchanges of crypto assets between individuals will stay allowed only until July 1, 2027. After that date, such trades will have to go through authorised intermediaries.
• Individuals may not move crypto from their digital accounts to their own non-custodial (self-custody) wallets.

The move comes as Russia builds a more tightly supervised crypto market. On Monday the Bank of Russia also authorised Sberbank, the country's largest bank, to offer crypto exchange services — after earlier approving it as a digital-asset custodian. We covered that approval separately: Sberbank wins approval to trade crypto.

Broader rulebook

Russia's new crypto rules took effect on Sept. 1 and put exchange operators and custodians under central-bank oversight. Paying for goods and services with cryptocurrency remains prohibited.

Industry voices quoted by Cointelegraph said some of the restrictions may be hard to enforce. Samson Mow, CEO of Jan3, argued that P2P trading is more resilient to crackdowns than centralised platforms. Stepan Uherik of SatoshiLabs said that even if wallet apps were banned, hardware and desktop wallets would still work.

Why it matters

The July 2027 deadline gives users and firms a long runway, but it also signals that Russia's regulated market is meant to sit between licensed intermediaries and the central bank — not in open peer-to-peer channels. For a primer on keeping keys yourself, see how to store crypto safely.