Russia has just incorporated into its legal code the allowance for foreign trade participants to use digital currencies for cross-border settlements. But in fact, a ruble-backed stablecoin has already paved this path for over a year—it’s called A7A5.
The new law aims to establish a compliant channel under the name of the state; A7A5 is taking a completely different path.
Coins minted in Kyrgyzstan In February 2025, Old Vector, a company registered in Kyrgyzstan, minted the first batch of A7A5, a stablecoin pegged to the ruble, with reserve assets held at Promsvyazbank (PSB)—Russia’s core banking institution for its defense system, long sanctioned by the West. Beyond the issuer, the A7 network to which this stablecoin belongs has been designated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury as linked to Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor. Shor has been convicted in absentia for a $1 billion bank fraud scheme and is subject to sanctions from the United States, the United Kingdom, and multiple other countries.
According to reports, by January 2026, A7A5’s cumulative on-chain transaction volume surpassed $100 billion, becoming one of the world’s largest non-U.S. dollar stablecoins in less than a year, with approximately 250,000 transfers and over 41,000 accounts. This pedigree ensured it was never just another stablecoin project from day one.
The coin that handles pressure the least The most counterintuitive part of A7A5's history is how it responded to sanctions—not by shrinking, but by expanding.
In August 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury targeted Grinex, the primary trading venue for A7A5; however, the trading volume of this stablecoin did not contract as externally anticipated. Instead, its market capitalization rose, briefly approaching $500 million and accounting for more than 40% of the total market capitalization of non-U.S. dollar stablecoins at the time.
Reports citing on-chain data suggest that a significant portion of tokens on the A7A5 network underwent burning and re-minting on new wallets following sanctions on associated exchanges—a technique that objectively severs the link between frozen addresses and the new tokens. However, it should be noted that the exact proportion and timing of these events have not yet been independently verified by established on-chain analysis firms such as Elliptic or TRM Labs, and thus remain an observation worthy of continued monitoring rather than a confirmed fact.
Regardless of whether these specific operational details can ultimately be proven, a simpler fact is enough to illustrate the point: even after Garantex was shut down and Grinex was sanctioned, this coin did not die—it grew stronger instead. This at least shows that freezing a few exchanges is far less effective at shutting down a cryptocurrency settlement channel than commonly assumed.
An Identity Earned Through a Letter A7A5 has survived to this day not only thanks to these countermeasures, but also due to a sophisticated legal facade.
Russia enacted the Digital Financial Assets Act (259-FZ) in 2021, permitting licensed "information system operators" to issue regulated digital financial assets (DFAs), which must be issued on private blockchains by licensed institutions such as Sberbank and Alfa-Bank—essentially a completely different category from public-chain stablecoins like A7A5.
However, according to an analysis article from the Davis Center at Harvard University, in October 2025, the Central Bank of Russia issued a "letter of no objection," which some research institutions interpreted as tacit approval by Russian regulators for the cross-border use of A7A5. It should be noted, however, that this remains an analytical characterization by research institutions regarding the Central Bank's actions, not an official designation used by the Central Bank of Russia itself.
The official identity of A7A5 is "foreign-issued digital rights" (FDR), which was not originally intended to comply with the design goals of Federal Law No. 259-FZ; however, regulators chose to tacitly permit it. This has been the path A7A5 has taken over the past two years: no specific law was enacted to accommodate it; instead, a vague letter from the central bank retroactively opened the door to cross-border settlements.
The broad highway and the narrow plank bridge The new law, Du Ma, effectively turns this backdoor into a main road—foreign trade contract settlements in digital currencies are now explicitly written into the legal text, no longer requiring an ambiguous letter from the central bank.
However, the new law establishes a domestic registry: exchanges, clearinghouses, and brokers must all be registered with the Central Bank of Russia, and banks and financial institutions will face stricter compliance requirements. A7A5, by contrast, has its issuer based in Kyrgyzstan and operates on offshore exchanges and public blockchain DeFi protocols—its cross-border structure inherently reduces the impact of freezing by any single jurisdiction.
This is the paradox left by the new law for A7A5: to reap the benefits of compliance, it must align itself with domestic registries; but once it leaves clear institutional and financial traces, its prized moat—“always reconfigurable and hard to freeze”—is simultaneously weakened.
The new law demands a visible, controllable state channel; the value of A7A5 is precisely built on the fact that it is invisible and uncontrollable. Whether the two can be compatible is itself an open question.
After the ceasefire, who gets eliminated first? What truly worries A7A5 is not the sanctions themselves, but the possibility that the sanctions might end.
As rumors of a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine intensify, Oleg Ogienko, an executive at A7A5, publicly stated that even if sanctions are lifted, this cryptocurrency still has a reason to survive—faster and more convenient cross-border settlements. This sounds confident, but from another perspective, it also reveals unease: once the sanction-driven environment that supports its existence disappears, what will it have to compete with dollar stablecoins that dominate liquidity?
However, Duma’s new law is not truly preparing another stablecoin, but rather a national-level framework for cross-border settlement of digital assets. In the past, Russia has relied more on market-driven solutions such as A7A5; in the future, whether it’s a new compliant stablecoin, regulated digital financial assets, or the digital ruble, each could play different roles within this framework, without having to bet its cross-border settlement capabilities on a single token already embroiled in sanctions.
Interestingly, the Central Bank of Russia also plans to further expand the use of the digital ruble. The nearly simultaneous advancement of the institutional framework and the central bank digital currency indicates that Russia is gradually shifting from a market-driven, informal "shadow settlement network" to a state-led, regulatory-controlled digital settlement system.
A shadow token that survived through constant maneuvering, a national law that just gained legal status but demands a traceable footprint everywhere, and a digital ruble issued directly by the central bank—three tracks are running simultaneously. What sanctions have truly forced into existence is not a single brilliant design, but an entire interconnected system of backups for survival.
Who will be eliminated first? And who will survive until the ceasefire?
The content of this article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice. The market carries risks; investments should be made with caution.