Bank of Russia eyes full-scale digital ruble launch by next July

The Central Bank of Russia plans to launch the digital ruble for widespread use in July 2025 after successful pilot tests.

The Central Bank of Russia may launch its central bank digital currency, also known as the digital ruble, as early as July 2025, Russia’s state news agency TASS reported today, July 30.

According to TASS, the head of the Central Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, announced the news during a speech at a meeting of the country’s Federation Council. Nabiullina said that if everything goes as planned and the pilot programs are successfully completed, the country will launch a digital fiat currency with a “mass implementation” next July. However, she noted that the transition will be a “gradual process.”

Nabiullina stressed in early April that it would likely take five to seven years for Russia’s CBDC to be widely implemented, noting that it would be “a natural process, because the choice of people and businesses is very important and it has to be convenient for them.”

The (long) history of Russia’s CBDC

The Central Bank of Russia has been running a pilot project for its CBDC among local banks since August 2023. The first phase involves about 600 employees from 12 banks and is testing the opening and closing of digital wallets, wallet top-ups, person-to-person transfers, and automatic payments and transfers.

The digital ruble represents a blockchain-based digital form of the Russian national currency. Like all CBDCs, it is inherently a centralized digital currency issued and controlled by the central bank. The Russian government, and particularly the central bank, has been discussing and developing a state-issued digital currency, previously referred to as a “crypto ruble”, since 2017.

In an October 2020 advisory, the central bank reassured citizens that the proposed CBDC would not replace existing cash and non-cash rubles in circulation, but rather complement them. In contrast, China, a key benchmark for Russia’s digitalization efforts, has begun paying salaries to civil servants in Changshu province using its own CBDC, the digital yuan, to encourage adoption of the state-controlled currency.