Sberbank Sees Russian Regulated Crypto Trading Hitting $46B in Year One
Russia's largest bank, Sberbank, is expecting a significant boost in regulated crypto trading volumes after the Bank of Russia passed a draft regulation allowing investors to purchase crypto assets legally through brokers.
The regulation took effect on September 1, and according to Sberbank Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board Anatoly Popov, expectations for trading volumes during the first year are conservative. However, the bank projects that regulated trading will reach at least 4 trillion rubles ($46.43 billion) in its first year.
The daily volume of cryptocurrency transactions in Russia is around 50 billion rubles, or roughly 18 trillion rubles a year, according to Finance Ministry data as of February. SberCIB Investment Research analysts estimate that only around 20% of this volume will be traded on exchanges in the first year after legalization.
The limiters of these figures include the continued use of unregistered cryptocurrency exchange services and the law's limitations on crypto investments, which allow non-qualified investors to purchase up to 300,000 rubles (about $3,800) in crypto per year through a single licensed intermediary. Only Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether have been approved for trading on official Russian exchanges.