The Bank of Russia identified 4,400 companies and projects with signs of illegal activity over the nine months of 2026 — 23% fewer than a year earlier. However, the decline in the overall number of violators does not mean that risks for citizens have disappeared: pyramids are changing tactics, switching to micropayments and increasingly exploiting cryptocurrency themes.
Structure of the Illegal Market
Pseudo-investment projects remain the largest category of violators — 2,032 entities. Signs of an illegal lender were detected in 1,392 organizations, and of an illegal professional participant in the securities market — in 982. At the same time, 1,503 projects (a third of all violators) display signs of classic financial pyramids, and these are predominantly schemes operating online.
Organizers are increasingly abandoning aggressive advertising of super-profits and disguising schemes as loyalty programs. Participants are invited to regularly deposit small amounts — from 5,000 rubles — ostensibly to increase the limit of a card with discounts on marketplaces. According to the regulator's assessment, such micropayments dull the sense of loss and significantly extend the life of a pyramid.
Cryptocurrency, AI and the "Sovereign Blockchain"
Digital assets remain the main lure: 752 pyramids out of 1,503 promised depositors earnings on cryptocurrencies. The organizers of another 79 schemes "guaranteed" increased returns with the help of artificial intelligence. Some projects lured people into "international" investments — in real estate in Southeast Asia or in a new payment system. Certain pyramids offered investments in networks of crypto exchange offices in Russia and the CIS and even in the "sovereign cryptocurrency of Russia" on their own "quantum-protected blockchain."
The Bank of Russia passes all information about violations to law enforcement agencies. Over the nine months, 475 administrative cases were opened based on them, and more than 680 other measures were taken, including lawsuits and halting advertising. At the regulator's initiative, access was restricted to 17,000 websites of illegal market participants and pyramids.
A Benchmark for the Investor
The Central Bank's registry helps distinguish a legal crypto service from a pyramid: it already contains 23 crypto exchange offices, and the regulator does not plan to close it even due to sanctions risks. Kirill Pronin, Director of the Central Bank's Financial Market Infrastructure Department, emphasizes: clients must know whether they are working with a company from the registry.
Unscrupulous intermediaries are also looking for victims among debtors: the number of complaints against microfinance organizations over the same period grew by 57.3% due to so-called debt relief specialists. They promise borrowers to write off debts, but the person loses money on their services while the debt remains. Investor protection also concerns the legal stock market: participants at the Moscow Exchange forum discussed a case where an auditor issued an unqualified opinion for a company that had already allowed defaults. Sergey Shvetsov, Head of the exchange's supervisory board, called for radically reducing the number of auditors, while the Central Bank proposes raising the threshold for entry into the registry while preserving competition.
Cryptalist Analysis: The 23% decline in the number of identified illegal projects reflects not a recovery of the market but a migration of fraud into less conspicuous formats — micropayments and disguising as legal services. The dominance of crypto themes (50% of pyramids) confirms that digital assets remain the most effective tool for attracting retail investors, and regulatory pressure will intensify specifically in this segment. For institutional players, this is a signal of the growing importance of transparency and presence in official registries as a factor of trust.