Russia plans to block foreign cryptocurrency exchanges this summer to promote the development of local platforms

According to FinanceFeeds, Russia plans to block foreign cryptocurrency exchange websites starting in the summer of 2026 to direct crypto activities to locally licensed platforms, reduce capital outflow, and strengthen regulation.

This initiative stems from new legislation expected to advance in the spring, involving technical filtering by Roskomnadzor; Russian participants have a daily crypto trading volume of about 50 billion rubles, most of which occurs abroad.

Sergey Shvetsov, chairman of the Moscow Exchange Supervisory Board, stated that Russian traders pay about $15 billion in commissions to global exchanges each year, and local platforms aim to compete for this market. Experts point out that completely blocking foreign platforms is challenging and may push activities toward opaque channels.