Sber to Accept Tether (USDT) as Loan Collateral Under Russia's New Crypto Law

Sber Expands Crypto-Backed Lending

Sber, the state-controlled lender that ranks as Russia's largest bank, is preparing to accept Tether's USDT as loan collateral alongside Bitcoin and Ether, once the country's new digital asset rules are fully in force. Deputy chairman Anatoly Popov set out the plan in an interview published Aug. 28 ahead of the Eastern Economic Forum, saying the bank will first adapt its existing lending products to the new requirements and then gradually broaden its digital asset line. The expansion is explicitly conditional: the stablecoin, Bitcoin and Ether will enter Sber's collateral list only after the Bank of Russia approves the assets for public trading and every provision of the new framework has taken effect. The move extends a pilot the bank has already run. In December 2025, Sber issued its first crypto-backed loan to the industrial-scale mining firm Intelion, relying on the bank's internal systems and the Rutoken hardware platform to receive and administer the digital collateral. Neither the loan amount nor the specific coins pledged were disclosed. The structure itself is straightforward: borrowers who meet collateral requirements keep ownership of the pledged assets while accessing financing, and the lender can seize or liquidate them if the borrower defaults or the collateral's value falls short. Comparable collateralized borrowing has long been standard on Web3 lending protocols, but Sber's plan would move that mechanism onto the balance sheet of a state-controlled bank — a first for Russia's banking sector at this scale. Popov said the bank's hands-on experience with the pilot had prepared it for the regulatory transition and that crypto-collateralized lending is among the products Sber intends to develop further.

Bank of Russia Clears Three Assets

The regulatory groundwork was laid on Aug. 11, when the Bank of Russia published proposed rules designating Bitcoin, Ether and USDT as the three cryptocurrencies eligible for trading on regulated venues. The central bank screened candidates by market capitalization, daily trading volume and at least five years of price history on overseas trading floors — filters that left the two largest coins and the dominant exchange-traded dollar token as the only qualifiers. Under the framework, non-qualified investors who pass a suitability test may buy up to 300,000 rubles of qualifying crypto per year through each intermediary, while qualified investors face no purchase limits on assets traded on exchanges or over-the-counter venues. The broader law was passed by the State Duma in July and signed by President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 4, with core provisions taking effect Sept. 1. It defines the supervisory roles of exchanges, brokers, custodians, asset managers and other intermediaries, while preserving Russia's ban on crypto payments for domestic transactions. Sber's rollout timeline mirrors that schedule. Yet the bank is markedly cooler on another state digital asset project: the digital ruble, Russia's central bank digital currency, enters wider rollout the same day, and Sber chief financial officer Taras Skvortsov said the bank sees little evidence of demand for it. “I don't see any clear interest in this instrument, apart from the central bank's,” Skvortsov said, adding that neither retail clients, corporates nor financial institutions are actively pushing for the CBDC. The contrast is striking — a bank questioning its own central bank's digital currency while preparing to lend against a private, dollar-pegged token. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bitget.

USDT as Loan-Grade Collateral

COINOTAG's reading: taken together, the two threads — Sber's collateral plan and the central bank's qualifying list — mark the first time a G20-scale state banking system has formally elevated a stablecoin to loan-grade collateral. The central bank's own Aug. 11 publication is unambiguous on that point, naming USDT alongside Bitcoin and Ether under its market-cap, volume and price-history tests. For Tether, it deepens an institutional arc that already includes JPMorgan's reported work on a public stablecoin in direct challenge to Tether's $187B USDT, and the Fed's Jackson Hole program, which listed its stablecoins for the first time this year. Bitcoin-backed lending and dollar-token collateral entering a state bank's product line is a signal regulators elsewhere will study closely.