Из жизни альткоинов

Russia’s crypto scene is bigger than many realize, and regulators are sounding the alarm. Reports say daily crypto turnover inside the country may be around 50 billion rubles. That adds up fast — more than 10 trillion rubles a year by simple math — and officials say much of it moves beyond formal oversight.

Russia’s deputy finance minister, Ivan Chebeskov, raised the figure while speaking about the need for clearer rules. According to reports, he warned that millions of people are taking part, and that those flows are largely happening outside official systems.

That puts the state in a tight spot: clamp down and push activity further underground, or bring it under some kind of control and monitoring.

Regulators Move To Catch Up

The central bank’s tone has shifted. Once favoring a hard ban, the Central Bank of Russia now talks about licensing and limits.

On the same panel, Vladimir Chistyukhin, the first deputy chairman of Russia’s central bank, said lawmakers could take action during the spring session of the State Duma, which would give firms time to prepare for new rules.

The proposed approach aims to let ordinary people have small exposure while keeping bigger wagers in regulated hands.

Sanctions And The Push For Rules

Meanwhile, European Union officials have been worried about crypto being used to get around sanctions. Reports have disclosed that the EU is pushing for tougher limits on transactions tied to the country.

That pressure changes incentives. Some of the crypto use is likely about savings and protection from ruble swings. Some could be about moving value across borders.

Investor Limits And Traceability

A draft rule floated by regulators would cap what non-qualified buyers can hold each year. Reports note a proposed limit of 300,000 rubles for casual investors. At the same time, privacy coins would be excluded from the list of allowed assets.

Together, those steps show the goal is clear: allow participation, but keep tight limits and ensure transactions can be tracked. Requiring licenses also points to a push to shift activity away from shadow networks and into supervised, formal systems.

The Blind Spot: Annual Flows Escape Oversight

For now, the picture looks like a maze — billions in yearly crypto flows moving through channels the state does not fully see. The $129 billion estimate underscores how large and complex this market has become inside Russia.

Whether new rules can bring those funds into clearer view, or simply reroute them deeper into the shadows, will determine if authorities regain their footing or continue losing sight of one of the country’s fastest-growing financial arenas.

Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView

SBI Holdings CEO Yoshitaka Kitao pushed back on a viral claim that the Japanese financial group holds $10 billion worth of XRP, arguing instead that SBI’s more consequential exposure sits in its equity position in Ripple Labs, a stake he suggested the market may be underappreciating.

The exchange began after an X account described SBI as “a major partner of Ripple” and “holder of $10 billion in XRP,” tying the claim to SBI’s growing footprint in Asia through the acquisition of Coinhako, a regulated crypto platform based in Singapore. Kitao replied directly, disputing the framing and pointing to SBI’s ownership in Ripple rather than a headline XRP number.

“Not $10 bil. in XRP but around 9% of Ripple Lab. So our hidden asset could be much bigger,” Kitao wrote in a Feb. 15 post.

SBI CEO Dials Up Ripple Valuation Speculation

Kitao’s response effectively reframed the conversation from balance-sheet token inventory to private-market ownership. Rather than validate a specific XRP figure, he emphasized SBI’s stake in Ripple Labs, a detail that matters because equity value is ultimately a function of Ripple’s overall valuation, not the spot price of XRP.

In a separate post the same day, Kitao went further, explicitly tying his view to Ripple’s broader footprint. “When it comes to Ripple Lab’s total valuation which obviously include its ecosystem that Ripple has created, that would be enormous,” he wrote. “SBI owns more than 9 % of that much.”

Community member “BankXRP” amplified the implications by referencing recent reports that place Ripple’s valuation at “$50B+,” arguing that such a mark would put SBI’s 9% stake at “$4.5B+,” with “massive future upside as the CEO hints.”

While Kitao did not put a dollar figure on SBI’s stake, the 9% number sets a clean valuation yardstick. If SBI’s Ripple ownership were worth more than $10 billion, Ripple’s implied valuation would need to exceed roughly $111 billion, because $10 billion divided by 0.09 equals about $111.1 billion.

Put differently, at a $90 billion Ripple valuation, a 9% stake would be about $8.1 billion; at $50 billion, it would be about $4.5 billion. The threshold for “more than $10 billion” is therefore not a subtle rounding error, it requires a triple-digit billions valuation for Ripple.

Notably, SBI’s roughly 9% position appears to be the product of a long-running strategic relationship rather than a single headline trade: SBI’s own investor materials describe the Ripple relationship as having been “established” in September 2012, with the group later investing in Ripple in March 2016 and then deepening operational ties through the SBI Ripple Asia joint venture (SBI 60%, Ripple 40%) launched in May 2016.

SBI also participated as an investor in Ripple’s $200 million Series C financing announced in December 2019, a round that included SBI alongside other backers, one of the clearer public datapoints showing continued equity exposure as Ripple raised capital.

At press time, XRP traded at $1.46.