Russian officials reconcile the country’s dependence on the stablescoins issued abroad after the portfolios linked to the exchange of sanctioned crypto guarantors have been frozen. Osman Kabaloev, deputy director of the financial policy department of the Ministry of Finance, said The incident has shown the risks of using foreign stable and has strengthened the arguments to develop a Russian alternative. He suggested that a stablecoin emitted at the national level, potentially set for a currency other than the US dollar, could help Russia avoid vulnerabilities similar to the future.
TETHER, a major stable transmitter, frozen $ 27 million in USDT linked to Garantex on March 6. The action was part of a coordinated effort involving the United States Ministry of Justice, as well as the authorities in Germany and Finland. US officials said Guarantx had facilitated more than $ 96 billion in illicit transactions since its foundation in 2019. The exchange, which has already been under American sanctions since 2022 for money laundering, was forced to suspend operations, including withdrawal.
A Swiss blockchain-based blockchain analysis company indicated that Guarantx had reappeared under a new name, transferring whitewashed funds to the ruble stable to another platform. The event drew attention to the way stablecoins are used for cross -border transactions in Russia, especially under Western sanctions.
Before freezing, stablecoins and the USDT were widely used by Russian companies for international trade due to limited access to global financial systems. While the Central Bank of Russia remains opposed to the use of cryptography within the domestic economy, its governor, Elvira Nabiullina, confirmed that payments based on cryptography were tested for international transactions within the framework of an experimental legal framework. These tests allow companies to bypass restrictions that have become more important since 2022.
The Government is currently considering regulatory reforms, including changes to the Code of Criminal Procedure which would officially recognize digital assets as well as goods. In addition, Evgeny Masharov of the Russian Civic Chamber proposed to create a cryptography fund managed by the state made up of digital assets seized in criminal surveys.
This change of strategy comes in the middle of a larger global increase in the use of stablescoin. A recent report By Artemis and Dune found that active stablecoin portfolios have increased by more than 50% in the past year. Stablecoin’s market capitalization exceeded $ 200 billion in 2025 and the volume of annual transactions reached $ 27.6 billions in 2024, exceeding that of Visa and Mastercard combined.
Russian officials consider these developments as a challenge and an opportunity. The freezing of the assets linked to Guarantx has added an emergency to the discussions on the construction of national digital financing tools which can operate outside the control of foreign institutions.
