The central bank’s draft rules recognise digital currencies as capital, but treat anything outside its approved perimeter as pure risk.

The Bank of Russia published the draft instruction on 14 August, setting out how brokers, asset managers, forex dealers and standalone digital currency exchange organisations should factor digital currencies into their capital calculations.

Under the draft, brokers, managers and forex dealers can count digital currencies toward their own funds, but only up to 25% of the qualifying total, and only if those currencies are admitted to organised trading on a Russian venue and held on an account with a Russian digital depositary.

In practice, that currently means Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT – the only digital…