The second quarter of 2026 was a landmark period for the Russian digital financial instruments market. The number of open contracts among qualified investors in cryptocurrency derivatives surged by 136%, reaching 3.7 million units. This is not just a statistical anomaly, but a direct reflection of the structural changes taking place in the domestic financial system.
Significantly, amid the boom in derivative instruments, the volume of funds from qualified investors invested in units of non-resident ETFs tied to cryptocurrencies declined to 1.3 billion rubles, down from 1.6 billion in the first quarter. The regulator notes: direct investments in crypto assets remain modest, but cash-settled futures on digital assets are gaining increasing popularity.
From the Central Bank's permission to the boom in cash-settled futures
The key catalyst for growth is the Central Bank's decision, issued in late May 2025, which allowed qualified investors to work with derivative instruments, securities, and digital assets whose returns are tied to the value of cryptocurrency. Over the past year, the market has been filled with a variety of products. In July 2026, Alfa-Forex became the first among licensed forex dealers to offer clients CFDs on BTC/USD and ETH/USD pairs with leverage of up to 1:10. Within the first day, trading volume for the new product exceeded 35 million rubles.
The main selection of instruments is concentrated on the Moscow Exchange. In the summer of 2025, the venue launched cash-settled futures on American funds IBIT and ETHA from BlackRock, and in the fall added contracts on its own bitcoin and ETH indices. SPB Exchange, Sberbank, Alfa-Bank, T-Bank, and Finam are also developing their own product lines—from structured bonds to digital financial assets backed by real cryptocurrency.
Why cash-settled instruments dominate
Direct transactions with digital currency remain unavailable to Russian financial organizations. The regulator's rules allow only cash-settled instruments without delivery of the asset, while purchase and sale are available exclusively to qualified investors. This scheme relieves issuers of the need to build depositary systems for storing coins, and private clients of infrastructure risks and working on foreign platforms.
Starting in September of this year, cryptocurrency transactions will become available to both qualified and non-qualified investors through intermediaries. Direct deals between individuals remain prohibited. For non-qualified investors, a limit on the purchase and sale of digital currencies has been introduced at 300,000 rubles per year.
What else the Central Bank's broker review showed
The inflow of retail investor funds into the stock market continued amid declining deposit rates. Over the quarter, individuals deposited 1.1 trillion rubles into brokerage accounts—19% more than in the first quarter and nearly double the figure from a year earlier. The share of contributions from qualified investors rose from 59% to 63%. The total volume of individual portfolios reached 13.6 trillion rubles, up 2% for the quarter and 24% for the year.
The number of trading participants recognized as qualified exceeded 1 million people for the first time—a 3% increase for the quarter and 11% for the year. Such investors account for 76% of all individual assets. It is this category that gained access to cryptocurrency derivatives, and it also provides the main influx of fresh money into the market.
Retail investors chose bonds as the primary investment target: their share in portfolios rose from 36% to 37%. Demand shifted toward medium-term corporate securities from issuers with high credit ratings and exchange-traded bond funds. The share of Russian equities, on the contrary, fell to 20% due to negative revaluation—the lowest level since the end of 2021.
Notably, the global derivatives market remains sensitive to leverage overheating. Analysts at XWIN Research Japan identified four key indicators of the bitcoin derivatives market: the funding rate, open interest, the estimated leverage ratio (ELR), and liquidations. According to their assessment, the leverage level has declined from the overheated values of 2025, but the ELR remains high. Global derivatives turnover for the first half of the year fell by 15.7%, with a much slower decline in open interest.
My view: the current growth in interest in crypto derivatives in Russia is not a speculative flash, but the formation of a sustainable trend. The institutional infrastructure created by the regulator allows investors to gain exposure to digital assets without direct ownership, which reduces legal and operational risks. However, the high concentration of demand among qualified investors and the sensitivity of global markets to leverage remind us: rapid growth is always followed by a correction phase, and one must be prepared for that.