Sberbank can now keep and move digital assets for its customers.

Russia’s largest bank said the Bank of Russia gave it approval for record-keeping of digital currency and for facilitating transfers of those assets. The regulator also added it to a new register of digital depositories, which makes Sberbank the first bank in the country approved to custody digital assets. Bitcoin and other, smaller cryptocurrencies were included.

The interesting part is not the permission itself. It is where the permission is meant to happen.

What Sberbank Is Actually Cleared to Do

A digital depository is not a crypto exchange, and the difference matters. The Bank of Russia describes depositories as a place to record and transfer digital currencies and…