Cryptocurrency advertising in Russia: a strange transitional period and new rules of the game from September 2026
Starting September 1, 2026, new rules come into effect in Russia that, for the first time in two years, will allow advertising services related to organizing cryptocurrency circulation. However, the ban on advertising the digital currencies themselves remains fully in place. This creates an extremely contradictory and confusing situation in the market, which I will now analyze in detail.
Let me remind you that since August 19, 2024, Federal Law No. 221-FZ introduced a total ban on advertising digital currencies, as well as goods, works, and services related to their circulation. The ban also extended to offering digital currency to an unlimited circle of people. In practice, this meant that it was impossible to write "Buy USDT at a favorable rate" or "Exchange Bitcoin in 15 minutes." The wording was so broad that the effect went far beyond the exchangers themselves.
Why the 2024 ban was logical
From a legal standpoint, as noted by Andrey Tugarin, managing partner at GMT Legal, the ban was absolutely logical. At that time, Russia had no regulation whatsoever for organizing cryptocurrency circulation. The state effectively prohibited advertising something that had no legal framework. The mining example is telling: in August 2024, the state legalized this activity, created a separate regulated regime for miners, but at the same time, Yandex.Direct updated its rules and banned advertising for mining, crypto exchangers, and blockchain. A strange effect emerged: the state allowed the activity, while the largest advertising platform banned it. Today, Yandex's rules still permit advertising mining equipment and cloud resources, but crypto exchangers themselves and mining as an activity remain in prohibited categories.
The market, however, has not been particularly concerned about the ban over these two years. Even now, in public listings of exchangers, users are directly offered to buy and sell USDT, BTC, ETH, compare rates, and choose a specific service. Market participants operated as if the advertising bans did not exist.
What changes in September
Now a regulated framework is emerging. Federal Law No. 282-FZ dated 04.08.2026 "On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights" and Federal Law No. 283-FZ dated 04.08.2026 have been adopted. The first creates the regulated organization of cryptocurrency circulation itself and defines its legal participants. The second restructures many related laws, including the Advertising Law. Both laws were officially published on August 4, 2026.
From September 1, the ban on advertising digital currencies themselves remains. It is still not allowed to make BTC the "asset of the week," offer to "buy USDT today," or promise growth of a specific coin. However, advertising services for organizing the circulation of digital currencies is now permitted. The state has created a regulated framework: rules have been defined, conditions have been established for obtaining the statuses of legal crypto exchangers, digital depositories, and other participants. Banning these participants from informing the market about their services, in the expert's opinion, would look strange. A separate permitted model for this is created by the new Article 29.2 of the Advertising Law.
There is an interesting point here. The new advertising conditions begin to apply as early as September 1, 2026, and apply only to cryptocurrency circulation participants from the Central Bank registry. The full regime, under which only registry participants are entitled to organize circulation, is activated only on July 1, 2027.
Exchangers can operate under the old rules until that date, but the new advertising conditions do not apply to such players — they are not in the registry, which the Central Bank itself has not yet opened. The market enters an unusual transitional period: new rules already exist, but the new licensing infrastructure is only being launched. As of August, the Bank of Russia has published drafts of the procedures for maintaining registries and other necessary acts. This is not a complete legal vacuum — the law specifically provided for transitional mechanisms — but a certain regulatory desynchronization is obvious.
My conclusion: the current situation is a classic example of how a regulator tries to balance between legalization and control. The market will get the long-awaited opportunity to advertise services, but only for "white" players, who do not yet exist. In fact, until July 2027, we will observe a gray zone where old exchangers will continue to operate without new rights, while new legal participants are just beginning to form. This will create grounds for competition and, likely, for new targeted clarifications from the Central Bank and FAS. Investors and market participants should closely monitor developments.