Sberbank activated Bitcoin-backed lending the day Russia's national digital-asset framework took legal effect — with Ethereum and USDT held pending central bank approval.
President Vladimir Putin signed Russia's digital-asset law on August 4, 2026, effective September 1; the statute legalizes crypto assets as loan collateral and authorizes financial institutions to build regulated crypto-backed lending programs, while prohibiting digital assets from serving as payment for domestic goods or services. Sberbank — Russia's largest bank, projecting $46.4 billion in regulated crypto transaction volume in the framework's first year — announced on August 28, through deputy chairman Anatoly Popov speaking to TASS, that it would begin accepting Bitcoin as collateral on September 1. The bank had piloted the model in December 2025, issuing what it described as Russia's first crypto-backed corporate loan against Bitcoin held by AO Intelion Data, a mining operator. Ethereum and USDT are planned as additional collateral types, but require a separate Bank of Russia ruling permitting their public circulation — a ruling not issued as of September 1.
Bitcoin's classification under Russia's new framework — as legally recognized loan collateral within a statutory lending structure, not as a payment instrument — establishes Sberbank's program as the first instance of a state-owned bank of its scale formally integrating Bitcoin into sovereign credit infrastructure under an explicit national law.
