Russia’s biggest private bank wants to hold your crypto. Alfa-Bank has announced plans to launch cryptocurrency services for both individual and corporate clients, with ambitions to operate as a licensed digital depository once new regulations kick in on July 1, 2026.
What Alfa-Bank is actually building
Alfa-Bank isn’t exactly starting from scratch here. The bank launched its A-Token platform back in February 2023, focused on digital financial assets, or DFAs. These are tokenized instruments that exist under Russia’s existing legal framework, essentially a halfway house between traditional securities and full-blown crypto.
A-Token has supported 86 issuances worth RUB 37.5 billion, which accounts for roughly 45% of the total DFA transaction volume in Russia during 2023.
With Russia’s new regulatory framework set to legalize a structured crypto market on July 1, 2026, Alfa-Bank is positioning itself to become a licensed intermediary and digital depository. The bank has also dipped into more creative tokenization projects, including hybrid gold-linked DFAs and tokenizations for subsidiaries of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear energy corporation.
