A top official from Russia’s Finance Ministry has suggested that the country should consider creating its own stablecoin in response to recent sanctions that affected digital assets linked to Russian entities.
According to reports from April 16 by Reuters and Russia’s TASS news agency, Osman Kabaloev, deputy director of the ministry’s financial policy department, stated that the recent freeze of wallets connected to the sanctioned exchange Garantex highlights the need for homegrown financial tools.
Kabaloev noted, “We currently do not restrict the use of stablecoins under our experimental legal framework. However, recent events have exposed potential vulnerabilities for us. This pushes us to seriously evaluate the idea of issuing our own stablecoins—possibly pegged to alternative currencies—similar to Tether’s USDT.”
The US Department of Justice, alongside authorities in Finland and Germany, took action on March 6 to shut down domains tied to Garantex, claiming the platform had processed criminal transactions exceeding $96 billion since its inception in 2019.
That same day, stablecoin issuer Tether froze $27 million worth of assets, effectively halting Garantex operations and suspending user withdrawals.
Garantex had previously been sanctioned by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control in April 2022 over allegations of money laundering. It’s now rumored to have re-emerged under a different name, reportedly continuing to funnel ruble-based stablecoins through a newly formed exchange, according to a Swiss blockchain analysis firm.
Russia Ramps Up Crypto Initiatives
On March 20, Evgeny Masharov, a member of Russia’s Civic Chamber, proposed creating a state-run crypto fund that would include digital assets seized in criminal cases. Meanwhile, lawmakers are advancing legislation that would define cryptocurrencies as property under criminal law procedures.
These developments come amid a broader boom in the stablecoin market, which surpassed a $200 billion market cap in early 2025. A joint study by Artemis and Dune Analytics revealed that active wallets using stablecoins have surged over 50% year-on-year.
The rise in automated trading tools also contributed to stablecoins hitting record transaction volumes in 2024, reaching $27.6 trillion—outpacing the total annual volumes of Visa and Mastercard by nearly 8%.
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