Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has fueled a rapid embrace of crypto technology within the country’s borders, according to a new study.
Russia is, by a wide margin, the top user of crypto among European nations, according to crypto forensic firm Chainalysis.
Russia has seen $379 billion in crypto inflows between July 2024 and June 2025, a year-over-year increase of more than 48%, the firm found. That placed the country ahead of the region’s longtime leader, the UK, which saw $273 billion in inflows — a relatively modest 32% increase from the year prior.
Evasion tactics
The war’s effect on crypto usage with Russia is twofold. First, the Russian government has turned to digital currencies in order to skirt international sanctions, which have limited the country’s access to US dollars and to global payment systems such as SWIFT.
Second, those sanctions have battered the ruble, and inflation-weary Russians are turning to crypto and DeFi in order to protect their savings, according to Bauer-Langgartner.
Russia is subject to a record 19 sanctions packages from the European Union. The most recent, issued in September, targets Russia’s use of crypto.
“Putin is now a vocal cryptocurrency advocate,” the think tank Rand noted in a recent report. “At December’s annual Russia Calling investment forum, he claimed that ‘no one can prohibit the use of Bitcoin.’”
The report cited several examples of Russia’s newfound affinity for crypto, including an alleged scheme in which Rosatom, a state-owned nuclear technology company, laundered more than half a billion dollars in stablecoins for Russian clients who were trying to evade US sanctions and acquire “sensitive US technology.”
Indeed, transfers of over $10 million increased 86% in Russia, according to Chainalysis data. That’s double the 44% growth the firm saw in the rest of Europe during the same period.
Russia’s DeFi embrace
Even as Russian firms increasingly use crypto for international payments, the use of crypto is banned within Russia.
“The Russian government is actually not very keen for crypto adoption within the larger population, because it’s something that can hardly be controlled,” Bauer-Langgartner said.
That hasn’t stopped regular Russians from turning to digital assets to protect their savings. While inflation has slowed this year, it remained elevated at 8.2%, the Russian central bank said in September.
“Because there is this ban, we can see a lot of DeFi growth, where people go to no-KYC exchanges, peer-to-peer platforms, or so-called instant exchanges, where they can quite easily link their Russian, sanctioned bank account to a crypto trading platform,” Bauer-Langgartner said.
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