Russia’s Sberbank wins crypto exchange authorization ahead of December launch

The significance is less the licence itself than the operator holding it: Russia's largest bank moving from crypto scepticism to regulated venue signals that domestic digital-asset trading is being folded into the state-adjacent financial mainstream rather than left to offshore exchanges. The three listed assets — Bitcoin, Ether and Tether — keep the offering narrow and liquidity-concentrated, with the stablecoin notably included despite its offshore issuance. The open question is whether other major Russian banks follow through the same authorization channel, and how the framework treats assets beyond those three.