Moscow Launches XRP Perpetual Futures

Under the name XRPUSDF, it added a fifth crypto asset perpetual futures product, following Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and Tron. The service is offered to qualified investors in Russia.

The futures involve no actual exchange of XRP; they settle only the difference between the reference price and the entry price in rubles. The reference price follows the XRP index the Moscow Exchange calculates on its own.

The Moscow Exchange's XRP index is calculated by combining data from four overseas exchanges. Among them, Binance's trading price accounts for 50% of the index weighting, half of the total.

Russia enacted its crypto asset law on September 1, which prohibits using crypto assets as a payment method domestically. This is intended to protect the sovereignty of the ruble. However, for foreign trade and investment activities, the regulations allow crypto asset use within the regulated system.

In 2022, the G7 and EU froze $300 billion of Russia's overseas assets, which made Russia realize it needed to reduce reliance on assets exposed to the influence of specific countries, such as the dollar and the euro. This experience raised the preference of central banks worldwide for 'neutral assets' that belong to no country's debt, and gold purchases have risen for four consecutive years.

The aim is to reduce dependence on the dollar by interconnecting payment systems operated by individual countries, such as Brazil's Pix, India's UPI, China's CIPS, and Russia's SPFS. Rather than using a single currency, this approach links each country's payment network.

mBridge, a central bank digital currency (CBDC) payment network involving China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, has processed a cumulative $55.5 billion. Of this, 95% was in digital yuan, showing the overwhelming influence of the digital yuan on cross-border payment networks.

In trade between Russia and India, Russia received large amounts of rupees in payment for crude oil exports. However, India has limited uses for the rupee, so rupees piled up excessively at Russian banks and companies. Sberbank, Russia's largest bank, even set up a fund investing rupees in Indian stocks, but direct settlement between the two non-dollar currencies failed to resolve the imbalance, and a third currency such as the yuan emerged as the settlement medium.

A7A5 is a token pegged 1:1 to the ruble, issued by a Kyrgyz company, backed by a Russian state-owned bank, and operated on Tron and Ethereum. It was an example of Russia attempting to use blockchain technology for foreign trade settlement, but it is currently suspended.

Due to sanctions from the US, UK, and EU, trading volume of Russia-linked tokens plunged 96% as of June this year. As sanctions blocked existing currency flows, Russia is preparing institutional crypto services through major banks such as Sberbank. The crypto asset law enacted on September 1 supports this trend by formalizing the use of crypto assets in foreign trade settlement.

The BRICS bloc, by contrast, is designing CBDC-based payment networks that can still operate if the dollar network is cut off. Both blocs are shifting to blockchain-based payment systems for different reasons, and they are ultimately arriving at the same destination: settlement via blockchain ledgers.

As various digital ledgers emerge, the need for intermediary assets that can efficiently exchange and settle value between these ledgers is growing. As the number of ledgers rises, the number of currency pairs that must be linked directly grows exponentially. As the ruble and rupee case shows, direct linking creates currency imbalances, so using a single bridge asset can improve settlement efficiency and optimize inventory management.

The mBridge project is an example, where 95% of settlement was in digital yuan. In an economy as intertwined as China's, India's, and the US's, even if a BRICS payment network is built, its connection to the dollar network cannot be avoided in the end, which further underscores the need for a third, neutral asset.

To become a neutral intermediary asset, the asset itself must not be the debt of any country or company. Stablecoins are the debt of their issuers, and the digital ruble is the debt of the Russian central bank, so for the opposing bloc to hold such assets, it must trust the issuing entity. It is also essential to manage access points through cooperation with the financial sector within the regulatory framework. XRP is assessed as an asset that satisfies both of these conditions: neutrality and regulatory compliance.