The Russian Constitutional Court will rule on whether USDT has property rights or constitutes a judicial precedent for stablecoins.

According to Mars Finance, the Constitutional Court of Russia is reviewing a key case that will determine whether citizens have property rights over stablecoins such as USDT. Several experts from regulatory agencies have stated to the court that USDT and other fiat-pegged stablecoins do not fall under the category of “Digital Financial Assets” (DFA) under Russian law, nor do they apply to the country's digital currency circulation rules. The case originated when Moscow resident Dmitry Timchenko lent 1,000 USDT in 2023, but the other party refused to return it. His appeals to the district court, the high court, and the Supreme Court were all rejected, with the court ruling that stablecoins do not belong to the protected category of DFA. Timchenko subsequently appealed to the Constitutional Court, claiming that “Russia does not have any other asset class facing such restrictions.” During the hearing, both the Central Bank and the AML agency Rosfinmonitoring stated that stablecoins possess the characteristics of “foreign currency digital assets,” making it difficult to define them as DFA, and proving ownership on the public chain is challenging. Some legal experts believe that if stablecoins are not recognized as DFA, it may actually benefit ordinary traders in their daily transactions or in evading sanctions, but the lack of legal protection also increases the risk of assets being frozen by the issuer. The final ruling in this case is expected to be published in a few weeks in a non-public manner, and it is regarded as an important precedent for the judicial recognition of stablecoins in Russia.