Today, the State Duma passed a law on the implementation of the digital ruble at the second and third readings. This is the third form of the Russian currency - it will supplement the cash and non-cash forms.

The law defines the concepts of the "digital ruble platform", "rules of the digital ruble platform", "participant of the digital ruble platform", "user of the digital ruble platform", "digital account" (also "wallet"). Access to the digital ruble platform is provided to non-residents by participants of the digital ruble platform, which are authorized banks, or foreign banks, which are participants of the digital ruble platform, and in some cases - the operator of the digital ruble platform (this is the Bank of Russia). Rosinfomonitoring and the Bank of Russia by December 31, 2024 agree on the circle of users of the digital ruble platform, a list of types of operations and their threshold values.

The Central Bank, as the operator, bears responsibility for the safety of digital rubles, as well as for the correctness of accounting for operations with digital rubles. The law regulates the features of opening and maintaining digital ruble accounts of individual employees of the FSB, FSO, Foreign Intelligence Service, as well as members of their families. They will be additionally stipulated in special agreements between the Bank of Russia and these departments. The document will come into force on August 1, 2023, except for provisions for which a different date of entry into force is established.

Earlier, the Bank of Russia emphasized that the digital ruble is not a cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency has no issuer and there is no single center that would have obligations for them, the digital ruble has an issuer.

The Central Bank also explained that digital rubles can be exchanged for cash through a non-cash form at a ratio of one to one. That is, first you will need to transfer digital rubles to a bank account or card, and then withdraw them in the usual way at an ATM or bank cashier.