Several Russian billionaires have moved additional assets out of the country over the past year, while some of its wealthiest people have shifted their portfolios toward crypto, gold, foreign property and Gulf-based investment funds, Bloomberg has learned, citing people familiar with the matter.
- People familiar with the billionaires' investment decisions estimated that informal capital outflows outside official figures have reached tens of billions of dollars so far this year.
- Bloomberg didn't say how much of that money entered crypto, though.
The shift accelerated as Russia's elite grew worried about the banking system, the weakening economy and a wave of state asset seizures.
Russian prosecutors secured court orders transferring more than 4 trillion rubles, or about $52 billion, in privately held assets to the state last year, according to Alexander Gutsan, Russia's prosecutor general.
- The most striking case was the nationalization of Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, Russia's third-largest airport, after prosecutors argued that its owner, Dmitry Kamenshchik, exposed the strategic asset to foreign influence through his Turkish and Emirati citizenship.
- The state later sold the airport to a company owned by rival Sheremetyevo Airport for $869 million, half its initial $1.74 billion asking price.
Crypto is helping wealthy Russians move money between jurisdictions despite Western sanctions and growing scrutiny from President Vladimir Putin's government, according to Bloomberg.
- Dubai, a financial and crypto hub in the United Arab Emirates, has become one of the main destinations, while additional routes run through Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the report notes.
- One of those routes involves A7A5, a ruble-backed stablecoin developed for customers of A7, a Russian cross-border payments company owned by Ilan Shor, a fugitive Moldovan banker, and Promsvyazbank, a sanctioned Russian state lender.
- The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned A7 and A7A5 issuer Old Vector in August 2025, accusing the network of supporting sanctions evasion.
- Blockchain forensic company Elliptic estimated in January that A7A5 had processed more than $100 billion in transfers since its launch, though Bloomberg didn't say whether any of the billionaires it tracked had used the token.
- The Wall Street Journal reported in April 2024 that Russian importers and Chinese suppliers are increasingly using Tether's USDT stablecoin to bypass Western sanctions.