The Moscow Alternate, Russia’s largest change group, announced the launch of Bitcoin futures contracts on June 4th, 2025. The brand new derivatives will enable certified traders in Russia to achieve publicity to bitcoin costs with out straight proudly owning it.
The bitcoin futures contracts are cash-settled in Russian rubles and will likely be tied to the iShares Bitcoin Belief ETF (IBIT) that trades on U.S. exchanges. The IBIT ETF tracks the value of bitcoin, with every share representing 0.00068 bitcoin.
Buying and selling for the brand new bitcoin futures kicked off on Wednesday, with the primary contracts expiring in September 2025. Every futures contract will likely be denominated in U.S. {dollars} per bitcoin however settled in rubles.
The launch of bitcoin futures on the Moscow Alternate comes after elevated curiosity in Bitcoin publicity from Russian monetary establishments. In Could, Russia’s central financial institution formally permitted the providing of crypto-linked securities and derivatives to certified traders. Previous to this, direct funding in Bitcoin was discouraged.
Sberbank, Russia’s largest financial institution, additionally introduced plans to unveil its personal bitcoin futures product along with the Moscow Alternate’s providing. The financial institution is launching exchange-traded notes that monitor Bitcoin’s worth with out direct possession.
Bitcoin futures and different crypto-derivatives have seen surging curiosity lately because the Bitcoin and crypto trade matures. The transfer comes as an rising variety of international locations have began including Bitcoin to their reserves.
As Bitcoin adoption will increase, traders and monetary establishments are in search of extra routes to achieve publicity to Bitcoin. The launch of futures on the Moscow Alternate gives regulated bitcoin publicity to certified Russian traders. However direct possession of “bodily” bitcoin stays off limits for many in Russia’s conventional finance sector.