Russia's finance ministry puts 20 million crypto owners at about $2,200 apiece

Divide 3.7 trillion rubles by 44 billion dollars and the implied rate is about 84 to the dollar ^[2][1]. The turnover figure converts the same way: 50 billion rubles a day, described as nearly $600 million, implies about 83 ^[4][2]. Across 20 million owners, $44 billion is roughly $2,200 each ^[3].

That average sits below the annual ceiling the new rules set for non-professional investors, 300,000 rubles per intermediary, or about $3,570 at the ministry's own implied rate ^[14][4]. A holder at the average is not touching it. A holder with six figures offshore is, and the ministry did not publish a distribution of the 3.7 trillion, so the share of the stock that runs into the cap is unknown.

At 50 billion rubles a day, annual volume is 18.25 trillion rubles, about 4.9 times the holdings the ministry reports ^[5]. A stock turning over five times a year is being spent and traded, and the source of that activity is on the record: Russian companies and individuals have increasingly used crypto to get around the fiat restrictions imposed under sanctions over the war in Ukraine ^[15]. I'd read it the other way too: 3.7 trillion is low, since Chebeskov said the mix of unlicensed domestic platforms and foreign infrastructure makes an exact count hard ^[11].

At the Moscow Financial Forum 2026 on Monday, Chebeskov put the number of crypto wallets held abroad by Russian residents at more than 10 million, one for every two users on his own headcount ^[12][7]. "We spoke with foreign exchanges ... and found that at least 10 million wallets belonging to Russian citizens exist within foreign infrastructure. So, there is indeed a degree of competition for these clients, and the goal is to bring them into our infrastructure," he said, as quoted by RBC ^[13]. Foreign and self-hosted wallets have not been explicitly prohibited ^[18]. The state is bidding for those clients.

On what the 3.7 trillion contains, Chebeskov was specific: "This amount includes direct holdings of digital currencies as well as certain financial products linked to them," he said ^[3].

The projection for next year is 10 million more users, which on a base of 20 million is 50% growth in the first full year after legalization ^[9][6]. Licensing comes first, and the central bank's Vladimir Chistyukhin said this week that the first participants in the organized market may be registered by the end of 2026 ^[8]. If the onshoring works, the ministry's own two numbers have to move, because a daily volume of 50 billion rubles has been the official line since February and the holdings estimate is a February-vintage market being described in November terms ^[5]. If both figures are unchanged when the 2027 users arrive, the law will have licensed venues without relocating balances.