The Central Bank of the Russian Federation will take control of misselling in cryptocurrency sales: penalties are inevitable.
The Bank of Russia has announced the launch of mandatory monitoring of misselling practices in the sale of digital currencies and financial instruments. The regulator intends to strictly suppress cases where financial organizations sell clients one product under the guise of another or deliberately withhold key risks. This initiative becomes particularly relevant from September 1, when digital currencies become available to retail investors through licensed intermediaries.
In my assessment, this is a logical continuation of the course toward institutionalizing the crypto market. Formal barriers—testing and limits—cannot guarantee that the buyer receives a complete picture of the risks. That is why the regulator is taking control of the communication process itself between seller and client, emphasizing the quality of disclosure rather than merely its formal existence.
What exactly the regulator will check
Oversight of misselling will become mandatory, as the legal framework for digital currencies is only just being formed. At the first stage, the key task is to assess how diligently financial organizations disclose risks, not just potential returns. The deputy chairman of the regulator emphasized: the testing and limit mechanisms remain in force and are not being canceled. However, they do not address the question of how exactly the seller presents the product to the client.
It is important to understand: the qualification test and annual limits remove only part of the risks at the entry point. But they do not regulate the seller's behavior at the moment of the transaction. Therefore, the regulator is adding its own supervision over intermediaries' actions to the formal restrictions. Violators face sanctions, although the regulator itself expresses hope that it will not come to punishments.
Context: the new law on cryptocurrencies
In August, the president signed a law that for the first time comprehensively regulates the circulation of digital currencies and digital rights in Russia. The document establishes rules for crypto exchanges, depositories, and market participants, and also defines the conditions for investors to purchase assets. The regulation covers the organization of circulation, accounting and custody, mining, issuance, and circulation of digital rights.
Under supervision fall operators of information systems, exchangers, brokers, management companies, trading organizers, and clearing organizations. For non-qualified buyers, a limit of 300,000 rubles per year per intermediary has been established. At the same time, distributing transactions across different licensed platforms remains a legal way to bypass this threshold—a loophole that the market is already actively discussing.
My analysis shows: the Bank of Russia's by-laws—testing criteria, registry procedures, requirements for depositories—will determine the actual stringency of the rules more than the text of the law itself. The industry is already expressing objections to certain provisions, in particular Article 30, which allows digital currency to be issued as a loan only to crypto brokers, trust managers, exchangers, and clearing organizations. Miners and private holders of large portfolios have fallen out of this list, creating legal uncertainty for a significant part of the market.
Expert opinion: Tightening oversight of misselling is a positive signal for the long-term development of the market. However, the regulator will need to find a balance between protecting retail investors and maintaining flexibility for professional participants. Otherwise, excessive pressure on sellers could drive transactions into the gray zone, which contradicts the very purpose of legalization.