RUSSIA’S CENTRAL BANK ADDS SBERBANK TO ITS CRYPTO EXCHANGE REGISTER — THE SAME BANK ALREADY KEEPS THE RECORD OF WHO OWNS THE COINS — ITS OWN SITE SAYS IT IS TESTING WITHDRAWALS BUT NOT TO WHERE

The Bank of Russia added Sberbank to its register of crypto exchange operators on October 12, 2026, according to Interfax, as carried by Decrypt and Bitcoin Magazine. On October 6, 2026, the same central bank listed Sberbank among its first five digital depositories, which this desk covered on October 7. Sberbank now sits on both lists. VTB already did.

The central bank's October 6 release spells out the two jobs. A digital depository keeps the record of who owns the coins and handles transfers. An exchange operator buys and sells digital currency in its own name and for its own account. Put the two together and Russia's largest bank can sell you bitcoin from its own book, then keep the official record that says you own it. Decrypt reads it the same way: the bank can take the other side of a client's trade and keep that client's records.

Sber's own business site said on October 9, 2026 that the bank is preparing a service to buy, sell, deposit and withdraw crypto, with bitcoin, ether and USDT in testing, and that it wants every client to have it from December 1. Withdraw is the word that matters. Nothing Sber or the central bank has published says whether a client can send coins to an address the client controls. Ordinary retail buyers are capped at 300,000 rubles a year per intermediary, per Decrypt and Bitcoin Magazine.

A coin that can only move inside one bank is a bank balance with a bitcoin label. Sber had 110.6 million retail clients at the end of the second quarter, per Decrypt. Before December 1, every one of them has one question to ask: can I move my coins to my own keys? Until Sber answers that in writing, the bank holds the coins and the record both. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $81,475.