The post Russia Loosens Crypto Rules For Ordinary Investors appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

Russia is preparing to open its crypto market beyond a small circle of wealthy investors by reworking who can legally buy assets like Bitcoin. If regulators follow through, ordinary Russians could gain broader access to digital assets through supervised platforms instead of relying on informal or offshore channels. Russia May Scrap “Highly Qualified” Rule — What That Means for Crypto Access The Bank of Russia and the Ministry of Finance  plan to drop the “highly qualified investor” requirement for cryptocurrency investments. They are working on a new approach that would let a wider group of citizens buy and trade assets such as Bitcoin under a regulated framework. Officials say they want a tiered access model, where people can enter the market with different limits based on experience, risk tolerance and financial knowledge, rather than a single barrier that blocks almost everyone. Until now, Russia has treated crypto as a product reserved for the very rich. The existing regime defines “highly qualified” status through strict income and asset tests, so only investors with very large portfolios or high annual earnings could legally access many crypto-linked products. Ordinary retail savers, even if they understood the risks, remained outside this category and therefore could not use most regulated channels to gain exposure to Bitcoin or other digital assets. The central bank’s own rules for investment funds reinforced this narrow access. Under previous instructions, mutual funds and similar vehicles could not hold digital currencies directly in their portfolios. They also could not use derivatives that involved physical delivery of coins. At most, funds whose units did not circulate freely could take small, cash-settled positions in instruments tied to digital currency prices, and even those positions sat inside tight concentration limits. As a result, retail investors who relied on regulated funds for market exposure saw…

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Filed under: News - @ December 3, 2025 1:49 pm