Russia’s digital ruble pilot hits 100,000 transaction milestone

Transactions with the digital ruble have reached 100,000 since the Bank of Russia started testing its new currency almost two years ago.

The stats were released in June after the monetary authority proposed a timetable for the wider implementation of the state-issued coin, following Putin’s call to speed up the process.

Russian companies and citizens taking part in the digital ruble pilot have conducted about 100,000 transactions with the new form of national fiat, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) announced in a report titled “Digital Ruble: Current Status of the Project.”

Bank of Russia reports on digital ruble progress

The document, published Monday, contains interim results from the digital ruble trials, which began nearly two years ago, as well as the financial regulator’s plans for the further development of Russia’s central bank digital currency (CBDC).

The presented total includes more than 63,000 transfers and almost 13,000 payments for goods and services as of the end of May. Some 17,000 smart contracts have been executed on the digital ruble platform, the bank detailed.

Bank of Russia also said that participants in the project from 150 cities and towns across the country have opened around 2,500 digital ruble wallets. Quoted by the Russian business news outlet RBC, the monetary authority noted:

“Transactions with the digital national currency are available to clients of 15 banks.”

The CBR started processing actual transactions with its CBDC in mid-August 2023. The pilot project launched with a limited number of participants, but over time, users grew to 9,000 private individuals and 1,200 businesses by the end of 2024.

Besides simple operations such as transfers between wallets, payments and refunds, the bank’s specialists also tested systems designed to protect the CBDC from cyberattacks and maintain the confidentiality of transaction data.

Meanwhile, several support centers for digital ruble users have been set up in Samara, Irkutsk and Khabarovsk to cover different time zones in the vast country. Their main job is to process transactions and provide settlement services, ensure compliance with anti-money laundering rules and help resolve technical issues.

Russia to scale up digital ruble pilot

The CBR is now fine-tuning the economic model of the digital currency, together with other government bodies and commercial banks, with particular attention to elaborating different scenarios for smart contracts to improve efficiency in business and government spending.

The regulator is also focused on scaling up the pilot, in terms of both the number of participants and available services. The central bank plans to develop e-commerce, payroll and invoicing applications, the report revealed.

Russia’s central bank also hopes to increase trust in the CBDC among Russians who, according to the latest data, hold more than $25 billion in crypto assets. The financial authority emphasized:

“It takes time to get used to the digital ruble, like any other innovation. The Bank of Russia is working to increase the awareness of citizens and businesses.”

The number of users will grow gradually, the CBR added, sharing its expectations that “this will allow to remove psychological and other barriers to the use of the digital ruble by citizens and businesses in the future.”

At the end of May, Governor Elvira Nabiullina indicated the Bank of Russia sees the coin’s main purpose as a payment tool in foreign trade and wholesale settlements. Russian companies have been dealing with serious financial restrictions as part of sanctions imposed over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The report comes out after last week the CBR set new dates for the full-fledged launch of the digital ruble in stages starting from September 1, 2026. It proposed the updated deadlines after Russian President Vladimir Putin urged to step up efforts for wider adoption of the national digital currency.