Market infrastructure
Moscow Exchange, SPB Exchange, the central counterparty, the depository and clearing — who is responsible for what.
20 articles
Token vs coin: whose network keeps the ledger and who is responsible for the issueA coin is a blockchain's own native asset, the one that blockchain serves: the reward for maintaining the network is counted in it, and the fee for a transfer is paid in it too.5 min
Proof of work: what the miner pays for and what the network buys with that moneyProof of work is the rule by which a network with no central authority decides which version of the transaction history counts as the real one: the right to append the next block goes to whoever presents the result of a deliberately expensive computation.5 min
Mining as a Regulated Activity: the Registry, Eligibility and the Role of the Pool OperatorMining in Russia is no longer a legally nameless pursuit: the 2024 amendments to the legislation on digital financial assets defined it as a distinct type of activity, restricted who may engage in it and tied eligibility to inclusion in a state registry.5 min
Crypto exchange vs OTC trade: who holds the asset until settlementThe difference between a crypto exchange and an over-the-counter trade comes down to whom you hand your asset to, and for how long.5 min
IOC and FOK orders: what happens to the remainder that finds no counterpartyIOC and FOK are not separate price types but time-in-force conditions on an order.5 min
Proof of Stake: whose capital secures the network and what the staker puts at riskProof of Stake (PoS) is the rule by which a network decides whom to trust with recording the next block: the right to propose a block and to attest to the blocks of others goes to those who have locked up their own coins in the protocol.5 min
Seed phrase: what exactly it restores and why it cannot be changedA seed phrase is not a password to a wallet but the wallet itself in human-readable form.5 min
Real estate DFAs: square metres, debt or a promise — what are you actually buying?A real estate DFA is neither a share in a flat nor an entry in the Rosreestr property register.6 min
Precious-metal digital financial assets: whose obligation you hold instead of the metalWhen you buy a digital financial asset (DFA) tied to a precious metal, you are buying neither the metal nor a share of a vault, but a digital claim on a specific issuer whose size is pegged to a quantity of metal, most often a gram of gold.5 min
HFT: what a high-frequency trader pays for, and why speed is infrastructureHigh-frequency trading is not a "fast version" of ordinary trading but a separate business in which profit comes from priority in the order queue rather than from forecasting the direction of the price.5 min
Issuing a DFA: the issuer's decision, the information system and who is liable for the obligationIssuing a DFA is neither printing a paper certificate nor listing on an exchange: the issuer adopts an issue decision, passes it to the operator of an information system that is on the Bank of Russia's register, and records then appear in the system — each one of them is a digital financial asset.5 min
Dark pool: where an order stays invisible until the trade, and who pays for the silenceA dark pool is a trading venue that does not publish its order book: until execution, nobody but the venue itself sees the prices or sizes of the orders resting in it.5 min
Monetary-claim DFAs: whose debt you are buying and where it is recordedA monetary-claim digital financial asset (DFA) is a digital right under which the issuer must pay you money, and the record of that right exists only inside the information system of an operator listed in the Bank of Russia register.5 min
DFAs: A Digital Right with an Obligor, Not a CryptocurrencyDFAs (digital financial assets) are property rights that are issued, recorded and transferred as entries in an information system rather than in a depository.5 min
Blockchain: how records stay intact without a registrarA blockchain is a way of keeping a shared ledger of records that is held not by a single organisation but by many independent network participants, none of whom can quietly rewrite the past.5 min
Iceberg order: the visible tip, the hidden reserve and the place in the queueAn iceberg order is a limit order that shows only a small visible portion of its size in the order book, while most of the volume sits in a hidden reserve and is released in fresh portions as each previous one is filled.5 min
Utility digital rights: whose obligation you are buying and how to get out of itA utility digital right (UDR) is not equity, not debt and not a token in the everyday sense: it is a claim, recorded in the information system of an investment platform, against a specific issuer for the transfer of a thing, the transfer of an exclusive right or of a right to use the result of intellectual activity, the perfor5 min
Bitcoin halving: why the miner's reward is cut by schedule, not by decisionThe halving is a reduction, written into bitcoin's code, of the reward a miner receives for a found block.5 min
Hybrid digital rights: a DFA and a utility right inside a single recordA hybrid digital right is not a separate instrument and not an "improved DFA", but a legal construct in which a single ledger record simultaneously includes a digital financial asset and another digital right, most often a utility right.5 min
The secondary market for DFAs: why the asset never leaves its own platformA DFA can be sold before redemption only inside the platform where it was issued, and only through an exchange operator listed in the Bank of Russia register. Why the asset cannot be moved to another operator, how selling it differs from placing an order in a bond's order book, and what the sale changes in the purchase limit and in the tax.8 min