The bill then escalates for more serious fact patterns. “The same act committed by an organized group, or involving the infliction of damage or the extraction of income on a particularly large scale, would be punishable by compulsory labor for up to five years or imprisonment for up to seven years,” the text says. Compulsory labor is a criminal sentence involving mandated work, distinct from imprisonment.

A separate monetary option is also explicit. The draft proposes a “fine of up to 1 million rubles [$13,100] or an amount equal to the convicted person’s salary or other income for a period of up to five years.”

Supreme Court Pushback and the July Digital-Rights Law Timing

The proposal is already running into institutional skepticism. Russia’s Supreme Court criticized the bill as lacking “reasoned justification” for criminal penalties and described it as “premature.”

The timing matters because the court linked its critique to a separate framework, the “Digital Currency and Digital Rights law,” expected to go into effect in July. In practical terms, that creates a sequencing problem. If the foundational definitions and rights framework are not yet effective, criminal penalties tied to “digital currency circulation” risk being enforced against an unclear perimeter.

That pushback does not kill the tradeable risk. It does suggest the draft could be amended, delayed, or reframed to align with the July law, making the legislative calendar itself a catalyst for Russia-linked venues and OTC rails.

Signals Traders Can Track in Russia-Linked Rails and Counterparties

The immediate tells are procedural. Watch whether the State Duma schedules readings or committee review for the draft and whether amendments narrow or define “digital currency circulation” in a way that clearly captures, or excludes, specific intermediaries.

July 2026 is the next hard marker. The expected effective date for the “Digital Currency and Digital Rights law” is now the reference point the Supreme Court used to argue sequencing, so any shift in that timeline changes the odds of the criminal-penalty framework moving.

Bank of Russia guidance is the other lever. Any clarification on what services require registration or licensing under the proposed regime would tighten the compliance perimeter and reprice counterparty risk quickly.

Finally, further public positions from the Supreme Court or other state bodies will matter. Consistent resistance implies slowdown or rewrite. Silence, or a pivot toward support, implies the draft is being advanced despite the critique.

Why This Draft Raises Compliance Risk Even Before a Vote

I treat this as a market-structure story, not a headline-chasing one. The draft is trying to make Bank of Russia registration the choke point for parts of crypto service provision, and that alone increases screening pressure on Russia-exposed flows even before enforcement exists.

The threshold that matters is definitional clarity. If “digital currency circulation” gets narrowed into a workable perimeter and Bank of Russia licensing becomes the gating function, the setup starts to look structural rather than narrative-driven, because counterparties will have to prove status or get priced out of rails that can’t tolerate criminal-liability ambiguity.

Sources

• Cointelegraph