The Bank of Russia continues its systematic fight against illegal activity in the cryptocurrency sphere. In the first half of 2026, the regulator added data on 2,600 crypto wallets involved in illicit schemes to its information database for law enforcement agencies and financial organizations.
In total, from January to June, 2,900 projects with signs of illegal activity, including financial pyramids, were identified. This is 31% less than a year earlier, although the figure remained virtually unchanged compared to the previous half-year. However, the most alarming number is that the total damage from fraudulent schemes linked to these addresses exceeded 1 billion rubles.
Crypto wallets in the digital compliance system
The addresses added to the database are used by banks to assess client risk profiles and conduct financial investigations. The regulator also actively uses this data to block suspicious transactions and identify the organizers of shadow projects.
Notably, the number of unique financial pyramids and pseudo-brokers continues to decline. However, fraudsters are adapting: they relaunch the same schemes under new names or create duplicate websites to bypass blocks. The Bank of Russia promptly finds such pages on social media and sends them for blocking, trying to prevent a scheme from gaining momentum before it attracts a mass of participants.
I would like to emphasize separately: the number of identified illegal lenders has doubled compared to the first half of 2025. The reasons are obvious — stricter requirements for legal MFOs have closed access to loans for clients with high debt burdens, and demand has moved into the shadows. The regulator now uses data from Rosreestr and the FSSP to uncover hidden lending schemes secured by real estate, where loans are issued by individuals and individual entrepreneurs.
What is happening around crypto wallets in Russia and the world
While the regulator cleans up the shadow segment, ordinary cryptocurrency holders are strengthening control over their funds. In Russia, demand for physical crypto wallets has surged: according to major marketplaces, sales of hardware devices jumped by 84–107% over the half-year. This spike coincided with the legalization of cryptocurrencies in the country and the high-profile story of the Coldcard hack.
The new law preserves the right of Russians to store coins on a personal cold wallet, but with caveats. Lawyers note: it is easy to bring crypto into the depositary perimeter, but withdrawing it back directly to your Ledger or Trezor is not allowed — only to the address of a foreign licensed platform.
The scale of shadow flows is also visible on-chain. Analysts discovered a cluster of wallets with 28,555 BTC worth about $1.8 billion, presumably linked to a money laundering case. The starting point was an address that "woke up" after six years of inactivity and began splitting funds across numerous wallets — following a pattern characteristic of laundering.
My view: the doubling of illegal lenders is an alarming signal indicating a structural imbalance in the market. Tightening regulation without creating accessible legal alternatives only pushes borrowers into the arms of shadow structures. For the crypto industry, the main takeaway is simple: blockchain transparency is becoming a powerful tool for law enforcement, and the growing database of "black" addresses is just the tip of the iceberg.