Russia’s largest bank is preparing to expand its cryptocurrency-backed lending business beyond bitcoin, with plans to eventually allow customers to pledge ether and Tether’s USDT stablecoin as collateral for loans.
Sberbank Deputy Chairman Anatoly Popov said the lender intends to broaden the range of digital assets it accepts after Russian regulators formally authorize the cryptocurrencies for public circulation.
The move would represent another significant step in Sberbank’s growing involvement with digital assets as Russia introduces a new regulatory structure governing cryptocurrency trading, custody and financial services.
Sberbank does not plan to abandon bitcoin as collateral. Instead, the bank intends to add ether, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, and USDT, the dollar-linked stablecoin issued by Tether, alongside bitcoin.
However, the expansion will not happen immediately.
Popov said Sberbank will first modify its existing cryptocurrency products to comply with Russia’s new regulatory requirements and then gradually introduce additional assets as the rules allow.
The Bank of Russia has already taken an important step toward making that possible.
On August 11, the central bank published a draft framework identifying bitcoin, ether and USDT as cryptocurrencies that could qualify for public trading on Russian exchanges.
The regulator did not choose the three assets arbitrarily.
Cryptocurrencies eligible for broader public trading are being evaluated using criteria that include market capitalization, average daily trading volume and the existence of a sufficiently long pricing history on international cryptocurrency markets.
The Bank of Russia requires an eligible cryptocurrency to have at least five years of price history on foreign trading platforms.
Bitcoin, ether and USDT met those initial standards.
The rules are intended partly to limit less experienced investors to relatively established and liquid cryptocurrencies rather than allowing unrestricted access to thousands of smaller and often highly volatile digital tokens.
Ordinary investors who are not classified as qualified investors would generally be permitted to purchase as much as 300,000 rubles worth of eligible cryptocurrencies per year through each authorized intermediary.
Investors would also need to complete testing designed to ensure they understand cryptocurrency risks.
Qualified investors would have considerably broader access.
After completing the required testing, they would be permitted to buy cryptocurrencies traded through regulated exchange and over-the-counter markets without the same annual purchasing restriction.
Sberbank’s lending plans would operate alongside this emerging regulatory framework.
The bank has already demonstrated that crypto-backed lending is more than a theoretical project.
In December 2025, Sberbank completed what it described as Russia’s first loan secured by bitcoin.
The borrower was Intelion Data, a Russian cryptocurrency mining company.
Instead of requiring Intelion to sell its bitcoin and convert the proceeds into conventional currency, the bank allowed the company to pledge bitcoin as security for the loan.
Sberbank used its own cryptocurrency custody infrastructure to hold the pledged assets.
The lender did not publicly disclose the size of the loan.
The transaction provided Sberbank with practical experience in handling cryptocurrency as collateral while also testing how a traditional bank could manage some of the unusual risks associated with digital assets.
Crypto-backed lending works similarly in principle to other secured loans.
A borrower pledges an asset to the lender and receives financing based partly on the value of that asset.
If the borrower fails to satisfy the loan agreement, the lender may have the right to seize or liquidate the collateral.
Cryptocurrency adds another complication because prices can move extremely quickly.
Bitcoin and ether can lose substantial amounts of value over short periods, meaning banks must closely monitor collateral levels and potentially require borrowers to provide additional assets if prices decline.
Stablecoins such as USDT introduce a different set of risks.
USDT is designed to maintain a value close to one U.S. dollar, making its price considerably less volatile than bitcoin or ether under normal market conditions.
That characteristic could make USDT attractive as collateral.
But Tether has centralized administrative control over the token and has demonstrated that it can freeze USDT held at particular blockchain addresses.
That capability creates an unusual problem for Sberbank.
The United States imposed full blocking sanctions on Sberbank in April 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The sanctions generally block Sberbank’s property and interests in property that fall under U.S. jurisdiction and severely limit dealings involving American persons.
The European Union also imposed restrictions on the Russian lender.
Tether has increasingly cooperated with U.S. authorities and the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The stablecoin issuer has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars worth of USDT connected with sanctioned addresses, criminal activity and investigations by law-enforcement agencies.
In April 2026, for example, Tether announced that it had assisted U.S. authorities in freezing more than $344 million in USDT across two blockchain addresses.
The company has said it follows OFAC sanctions guidance and works with hundreds of law-enforcement agencies around the world.
That ability means USDT pledged as collateral could theoretically become inaccessible if the tokens or associated blockchain addresses became subject to sanctions-related restrictions.
Bitcoin and ether do not have equivalent centralized issuers capable of freezing individual coins at the protocol level.
That makes USDT structurally different from the other two cryptocurrencies Sberbank plans to accept.
Russia’s central bank has itself warned about this issue.
Bank of Russia officials have cautioned that foreign-controlled cryptocurrency and stablecoin infrastructure can expose Russian holders to the possibility that assets could be restricted or seized because of sanctions or other unilateral decisions.
Governor Elvira Nabiullina has pointed to cases in which crypto assets associated with Russia were restricted even when the underlying owners believed they were legally entitled to them.
These concerns have not stopped Russia from moving toward broader regulated cryptocurrency activity.
A major new legal framework takes effect September 1, establishing rules for cryptocurrency trading through regulated intermediaries.
The system will bring brokers, cryptocurrency exchanges, asset managers and specialized custody providers into a more formal financial-market structure.
Foreign stablecoins will also fall under the new framework.
Russia is nevertheless maintaining a major restriction: cryptocurrencies cannot generally be used as payment for ordinary goods and services inside the country.
The ruble remains the legally protected domestic payment currency.
Using cryptocurrency as an investment or collateral, however, is legally different from using it to purchase everyday goods.
Russia is therefore attempting to permit controlled financial uses of digital assets without allowing bitcoin, USDT or other cryptocurrencies to compete directly with the ruble as ordinary domestic money.
The transition will occur gradually.
Although the new framework begins taking effect September 1, professional financial-market participants have until July 1, 2027, to obtain required licenses and bring their operations into compliance.
That means banks and other institutions are likely to introduce cryptocurrency products in stages rather than immediately launching a fully developed regulated market.
Sberbank appears determined to become one of the central players in that system.
Earlier this year, the bank said it wanted to extend crypto-backed lending beyond mining companies and make the service available to a broader range of businesses holding cryptocurrency.
The proposed addition of ether and USDT would significantly widen the potential collateral pool.
Bitcoin remains the largest cryptocurrency by market value and is widely held by mining companies and crypto-focused investors.
Ether provides exposure to the Ethereum ecosystem, which underpins a large portion of decentralized finance, tokenization and blockchain applications.
USDT serves another role entirely.
It is designed primarily as a stable digital representation of the U.S. dollar and has become one of the most heavily traded assets in global cryptocurrency markets.
Its relative price stability could make it useful for borrowers that want to pledge digital assets without assuming the same degree of collateral volatility associated with bitcoin.
But its centralized structure and connection to a company that cooperates with U.S. sanctions authorities could make it the most politically and operationally complicated of Sberbank’s proposed collateral assets.
No detailed commercial terms have yet been announced for the expanded lending program.
Sberbank has not publicly specified interest rates, loan-to-value ratios, minimum collateral requirements or a formal launch date for ether- and USDT-backed loans.
Those details will become particularly important because crypto-backed lending exposes lenders and borrowers to several risks.
If cryptocurrency prices decline sharply, a loan that appeared well collateralized when issued can quickly become undersecured.
A bank may therefore need automated systems capable of monitoring asset prices continuously and demanding additional collateral or liquidating positions when required.
Custody is another critical issue because pledged digital assets must be protected from theft, hacking and unauthorized transfers.
Sberbank’s previous bitcoin-backed transaction gave the lender an opportunity to test its internal custody infrastructure before expanding the model.
The bank’s plans are also emerging as Russia anticipates substantial growth in regulated cryptocurrency trading.
SberCIB Investment Research estimates that between 3.5 trillion and 4 trillion rubles in cryptocurrency could trade through Russian exchanges during the first year following legalization.
That would represent roughly 20% of the approximately 18 trillion rubles in annual cryptocurrency transactions estimated to already occur in Russia.
Sberbank expects regulated exchange activity could reach approximately 4.75 trillion to 5.25 trillion rubles by 2028 and around 7.5 trillion rubles by 2029.
The lender considers those forecasts conservative because substantial cryptocurrency trading is expected to remain outside traditional exchange infrastructure during the market’s early development.
The bank’s crypto-backed lending plans therefore form part of a much larger shift taking place throughout Russia’s financial system.
Cryptocurrency is moving from an activity conducted largely through offshore exchanges, mining operations and informal trading channels toward a regulated market involving some of the country’s largest banks and financial institutions.
For Sberbank, accepting ether and USDT alongside bitcoin would mark another stage in that transition.
The technology for using digital assets as collateral has already been tested.
The remaining question is how quickly regulators will authorize the assets and how Sberbank will manage the very different risks associated with volatile decentralized cryptocurrencies and a dollar-linked stablecoin whose issuer retains the power to freeze individual tokens.