The Central Bank of Russia will tackle misselling: concealing cryptocurrency risks will become punishable.
The Bank of Russia has announced the start of strict oversight of misselling practices in the sale of digital currencies and financial instruments. The regulator intends to curb situations where a financial institution sells one product under the guise of another or deliberately withholds its key features and risks. This statement comes amid the upcoming launch of retail cryptocurrency sales through licensed intermediaries, scheduled for September 1.
In essence, this is about a new level of consumer protection. From this point on, the quality of informing buyers about risks associated with digital assets will be under close scrutiny by the Central Bank from the very start of the new market's operation. The regulator emphasizes that supervision of such practices will be mandatory, since cryptocurrency regulation is only being introduced and requires special control at the initial stage.
Filters will not save from unscrupulous sellers
It is important to understand that the mechanisms already built into the rules, such as buyer knowledge testing and transaction amount limits for unqualified investors, do not fully solve the problem. These measures reduce risks at the entry point but do not guarantee that the client will be honestly informed about all the pitfalls during the actual sale. Therefore, the Central Bank is adding its own monitoring of seller behavior to the formal barriers.
The deputy chairman of the regulator made it clear: violations will be followed by penalties. At the same time, he expressed hope that it would not come to the application of sanctions. However, as practice shows, hope for the integrity of market participants is a weak tool, and the presence of a real enforcement mechanism is critically important here.
New rules of the game on the market
Let me remind you that in August a law was signed that for the first time comprehensively regulates the circulation of digital currencies and rights in Russia. The document establishes rules for crypto exchanges, depositories, and other participants, and also defines the conditions for asset purchases by investors. The regulation covers the organization of circulation, accounting and storage, mining, and the issuance of digital rights.
For unqualified buyers, a limit of 300,000 rubles per year per intermediary has been set. However, as already noted, distributing transactions across different licensed platforms remains a legal way to bypass this threshold. This creates a potential loophole that requires special attention from the regulator.
It is worth noting that the industry perceives the new law more as an institutionalization of the market rather than its liberalization. The Central Bank's by-laws, including testing criteria and requirements for depositories, will determine the actual strictness of the rules even more than the text of the law itself. At the same time, the industry has complaints about certain provisions, for example, Article 30, which limits the circle of persons entitled to issue digital currency as a loan, leaving miners and private holders of large portfolios out of the picture.
My view: This is a timely and necessary step. Without active oversight of misselling, the entire investor protection mechanism built through testing and limits could turn out to be a fiction. However, effectiveness will depend on how quickly the Central Bank can detect violations and how painful the fines will be for financial organizations. Only real enforcement practice, not declarations, can discipline the market.