#美联储重启降息步伐 Russia’s recent 180-degree turn on cryptocurrency policy deserves a closer look.

Top officials at the central bank have hinted at removing restrictions for high-net-worth investors—previously, only individuals with assets over $1.3 million could legally participate in crypto trading. Now, there’s sudden talk of letting ordinary people buy Bitcoin through banks? On the surface, it looks like policy liberalization, but in reality, it seems more like a desperate move after being backed into a corner. Western sanctions have completely blocked traditional financial channels, so loosening up at this moment is just too much of a coincidence.

What’s truly concerning isn’t the opening up itself, but the way it’s being implemented. All transactions must go through the domestic banking system—what does that mean? Every fund movement is under surveillance, and tax authorities and intelligence agencies can track every participant’s activities. In this system, decentralized cryptocurrencies become fully transparent digital assets.

VTB, the country’s second-largest bank, has already announced plans to launch direct crypto trading services as early as 2026. Their target customers are clear—they’ll start with ultra-high-net-worth individuals. The commercial logic behind this top-down approach is self-evident.

Even more crucial is the decision-makers’ strategic mindset. Kremlin think tanks have directly proposed designating Bitcoin mining as an official export industry. In their strategic roadmap, Bitcoin is viewed as another kind of energy export—a tool to bypass sanctions and earn foreign currency. As the world’s second-largest mining power, if this industrial strategy takes shape, the entire market landscape could shift.

Major powers never get involved for ideological reasons. What interests them is Bitcoin’s unique property as a payment tool—its ability to enable cross-border settlements that can’t be unilaterally frozen. When a sovereign nation weaponizes cryptocurrency to counter financial sanctions, the so-called “depoliticization” narrative simply doesn’t hold water.

In the short term, the market does gain a significant new buying force. But in the long run, joining a market that nation-states treat as a geopolitical tool will only drive volatility and uncertainty exponentially higher. This isn’t the expansion of a free market—it’s more like the beginning of another kind of contest.