Advertising crypto services in Russia: a new law, old prohibitions, and a strange transition period
From September 1, 2026, advertising of services for organizing cryptocurrency circulation will be permitted in Russia for the first time in two years. However, the ban on advertising the digital currencies themselves remains fully in effect. This duality creates an extremely unusual situation in the market, which I, as an analyst, cannot ignore.
Until recently, the answer to the question about advertising cryptocurrencies and related services was extremely simple: it is prohibited. Since August 19, 2024, Federal Law No. 221-FZ introduced a broad ban — on advertising the digital currency itself, as well as goods, works, and services related to organizing its circulation or directly to circulation. At the same time, the ban extended to offering digital currency and related services to an unlimited circle of people.
In practice, this meant that one could not write "Buy USDT at a favorable rate," "Exchange Bitcoin in 15 minutes," or advertise a crypto exchange as a place for exchange. The wording turned out to be so broad that the effect quickly extended far beyond the exchanges themselves.
Why the 2024 ban was logical
The example of mining is illustrative. In the same August 2024, the state effectively legalized this activity, established requirements for miners, and created a separate regulated regime for them. At the same time, Yandex.Direct updated its rules and banned advertising of mining, crypto exchanges, blockchain, smart contracts, ICOs, and a number of other cryptocurrency-related services. The result was a strange effect: the state had just legalized mining, and the largest advertising platform almost simultaneously banned advertising it.
Today, Yandex's rules still allow advertising of equipment and cloud resources for mining, educational materials, events, and a number of related services. At the same time, crypto exchanges themselves and mining as an activity remain among the prohibited categories in Direct's Russian rules.
The market has not been too upset by the advertising ban over these two years. This is especially evident in the example of Moscow City: even now, in public listings of exchanges, users are directly offered to buy and sell USDT, BTC, ETH, compare rates, and choose a specific service. Market participants continued to operate as if there were no advertising bans.
From a legal standpoint, the 2024 ban was quite logical. At that time, Russia completely lacked regulation of organizing cryptocurrency circulation. Therefore, the state effectively prohibited advertising it until a legal regime emerged.
What changes in September
Now such a regime has emerged. Federal Law No. 282-FZ of 04.08.2026 "On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights" and Federal Law No. 283-FZ of 04.08.2026 have been adopted. The first creates the regulated organization of cryptocurrency circulation itself and defines its legal participants. The second restructures a large number of related laws, including the Advertising Law. Both laws were officially published on August 4, 2026.
From September 1, 2026, the ban on advertising the digital currency itself remains. Advertising Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, or any other specific digital currency is still prohibited. One cannot make BTC the "asset of the week," offer to "buy USDT today," promise growth of a specific coin, or push a person to choose one cryptocurrency over another.
However, advertising services for organizing the circulation of digital currencies is now permitted. Unlike in 2024, the state has created a regulated framework: rules for organizing circulation are defined, conditions for obtaining the statuses of legal crypto exchanges, digital depositories, and other participants are established. Banning these participants from informing the market about their services, according to experts, 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 already from September 1, 2026, and extend only to cryptocurrency circulation participants from the Central Bank's register. At the same time, the full regime, under which only register participants are entitled to organize circulation, is activated only from July 1, 2027.
Exchanges 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 register, which the Central Bank itself has not yet opened.
From September 1, the market enters an unusual transitional period. The new advertising rules already exist, but the new access infrastructure is only being launched. As of August, the Bank of Russia published draft procedures for maintaining registers 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 here.
My conclusion: the market is entering a phase where formal rules and actual practice will diverge even further. Until the Central Bank's register is launched, legal advertising will remain a privilege of a narrow circle, while others will continue to operate in the gray zone. This creates risks for bona fide players who want to comply with the law but will not be able to gain access to new opportunities.