Belarus Hi-Tech Park registers first two crypto banks in post-Soviet region
Belarus has cleared its first two crypto banks for registration, a decision institutional investors should watch as the first working model anywhere in the post-Soviet space that fuses licensed banking with digital asset custody and trading under joint oversight from the Hi-Tech Park and the National Bank. The approval, confirmed by the state-run Hi-Tech Park on Monday, gives the entities conditional authorization but stops short of a full operating license until they clear a separate National Bank registry.
- The Hi-Tech Park Supervisory Board, chaired by Prime Minister Alexander Turchin, approved registration of two crypto banks on Monday, September 28, 2026.
- Anna Ryabova, head of the board’s secretariat, said building the regulatory framework took more than six months after Decree No. 19 was signed January 16, 2026.
- The two institutions must still be entered into the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus’s crypto bank registry before launching full operations.
- 2 crypto banks approved for registration by Belarus’s tech park board
- 26 digital coins, including BTC and USDT, cleared for crypto bank use
- 6+ mo spent drafting rules since the January 2026 presidential decree
The decree that created the category, first reported by Cryptopolitan, means Monday’s registration marks the operational debut of an institution that did not legally exist in Belarus eight months ago. The Hi-Tech Park’s press service said in its announcement that the two banks have already assembled teams with practical crypto experience and built the infrastructure required to operate, passing technical and legal audits along the way.
Anna Ryabova Confirms Six-Month Buildout Since January Decree
Ryabova called the approval a “significant milestone” for the jurisdiction.
Today, two crypto banks are launching their operations in our country.
Anna Ryabova, head of the Hi-Tech Park Supervisory Board’s Secretariat
The framework traces to Decree No. 19, “On Crypto Banks and Certain Issues of Control in the Sphere of Digital Tokens,” which President Alexander Lukashenko signed on January 16, 2026. Since then, the Hi-Tech Park and the National Bank have jointly written permitted-transaction lists, accounting rules and reporting standards specific to crypto banks, rather than retrofitting existing bank law.
That dual-regulator design means the new entities answer to both standard banking law and the Hi-Tech Park’s supervisory board simultaneously. Deputy secretariat head Dmitry Kalechits argued the structure will diversify financial instruments available domestically and attract fresh investment.
Belarus Cleared 26 Coins for Bank Use Back in May
Belarus had already signaled the scope of these institutions in mid-May 2026, when regulators disclosed that crypto banks would be permitted to process transactions in 26 approved digital assets, a list that includes Bitcoin and Tether’s USDT stablecoin. That coin list gives the new banks a working scope roughly comparable to a mid-sized exchange rather than a narrow custody license.
The move builds on a longer head start over regional peers. Belarus legalized mining and crypto trading through Decree No. 8, “On the Development of the Digital Economy,” which Lukashenko issued in late 2017 and which took effect in spring 2018, years before Russia followed suit only this past summer.
Lukashenko Cited Billions in Cross-Border Crypto Flows
Western sanctions tied to Belarus’s role in the war on Ukraine coincided with a sharp rise in the popularity of cryptocurrencies among Belarusians. Lukashenko himself acknowledged in the fall of 2025 that Belarusians were moving billions of dollars in cross-border crypto payments, a figure he used to justify the regulatory overhaul now producing these two licenses.
The CCS read. For institutional desks, the real signal is not the two banks themselves but the registry gate still standing between approval and operation. A National Bank listing under active sanctions scrutiny will show whether Minsk can offer dollar-adjacent stablecoin rails without becoming a compliance liability for any counterparty transacting with Belarusian entities.
The two banks cannot begin full operations until the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus formally adds them to its crypto bank registry, a step officials have not yet scheduled publicly.