Belarus set out a dual-regulator framework for crypto banks

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signed Decree No. 19 on January 16, 2026, setting out a regulatory category for companies that would combine digital-token activity with banking, payment and related financial operations.

The measure was consequential because it did more than restate Belarus’s prior tolerance for cryptocurrency businesses. It designed a single institution around both token operations and conventional financial functions, with access controlled by two state-linked gatekeepers. It did not, however, mean that a crypto bank opened on January 16 or that every token became legal tender.

This is a newly researched reconstruction of the January 16 record, not a recovered article from that date.

A new category, not an operating bank

The presidential press service said a “crypto bank” under the decree had to be a joint-stock company. Market entry required both residency in Belarus’s High-Tech Park and inclusion in a crypto-bank register maintained by the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus.

Those conditions mattered. High-Tech Park oversight covered activity involving digital tokens, while the National Bank side brought requirements applicable to non-bank credit and financial organizations. The presidential record described the model as dual regulation. An entity outside the register could not acquire the status merely by using “crypto bank” as a commercial label.

The official announcement did not name an approved applicant, publish a populated register or claim that customer services were available. Alexander Yegorov, the National Bank’s first deputy governor, said on January 16 that the first institution might appear after a six-month period for aligning legislation. That was a regulator’s expectation, not a completed license or guaranteed launch date.

What officials said the model could do

National Bank communications presented the planned institution as broader than a cryptocurrency exchange. Yegorov said crypto assets could be carried alongside fiat money on one balance sheet and described possible cards linked to crypto accounts. Interfax also reported his explanation that some self-employed people could receive cryptocurrency through a crypto bank.

These were contemporaneous descriptions of intended functionality. They did not establish that a card network was connected, that deposits had been accepted, that any particular token would qualify, or that customer assets carried the same protections as ordinary bank deposits. Product scope, prudential requirements, permitted assets and operating procedures still depended on implementation and institution-specific authorization.

The decree therefore mattered as financial architecture. It proposed a regulated bridge between token markets and accounts, payments and balance-sheet services inside one Belarusian entity. For crypto companies, that could reduce the organizational separation between an exchange-like business and a supervised financial institution. For regulators, the two-gate structure preserved direct control over admission and conduct.

What January 16 did not settle

The event-day evidence supports a narrow conclusion: Belarus created an oversight path for a new class of crypto-financial company. It does not show adoption, solvency, cybersecurity, transaction volume, customer demand or cross-border acceptance.

The decree also operated only within Belarusian law. It could not authorize activity in another jurisdiction, override sanctions or foreign licensing rules, or guarantee that overseas banks and payment networks would transact with a Belarusian crypto bank. Calling the measure “legalization” without those boundaries would overstate it; Belarus authorized a supervised route subject to registration and further rules.

No cryptocurrency price or market-return claim is attached to the signing. The reviewed records did not provide a defined instrument, venue and event window capable of isolating a market reaction. The institutional significance on January 16 was regulatory: Belarus had moved from permitting token businesses toward designing a hybrid, state-supervised crypto-bank category, while leaving actual entrants and operating evidence for later verification.