The revised bill introducing a 48-hour cooling-off period for withdrawals of over 100,000 rubles to external crypto wallets and transfers of over 300,000 rubles to third parties will not provide complete protection against fraudsters. While such a measure can reduce the number of impulsive transfers, criminals may adapt their schemes to the new restrictions. This was explained to Izvestia on August 23 by Alexey Mokrov, founder of CryptoBotPro LLC.
According to the expert, the regulator's initiative aims to address one of the main problems of such crimes—exerting pressure on a person and artificially creating urgency. In most cases, fraudsters do not try to hack the blockchain, but rather affect the psychological state of the victim, convincing them to transfer money immediately.
"A two-day pause is capable of breaking the artificial urgency. During this time, a person can contact their bank, talk to relatives, or simply snap out of a state of panic. Sometimes the best anti-fraud tool is the opportunity to let a person sleep on it before sending money to a stranger," Mokrov explained.
At the same time, the expert believes that the 48-hour cooling-off period cannot be viewed as a universal solution. He stated that fraudsters quickly change tactics and may try to bypass the restrictions by splitting operations. Instead of one large transfer, criminals could use several small transactions that do not meet the established threshold.
Mokrov noted that when assessing risk, it is necessary to consider not only the transaction amount. In his opinion, the system should analyze a combination of factors: the volume of previous transfers, whether the wallet address is new, who it belongs to, and from which device the operation is being conducted.
"The first large withdrawal to an unknown wallet and the hundredth transfer between one's own addresses are completely different levels of risk," the expert stated.
One possible solution, according to Mokrov, is the creation of a trusted wallet mechanism. A user could confirm ownership of an address once, then add it to a whitelist and carry out operations without constant delays. In the expert's view, this approach would maintain protection against fraudsters while simultaneously not creating unnecessary obstacles for bona fide investors.
A separate issue remains the impact of the 48-hour delay on the cryptocurrency market. Unlike bank transfers, operations with digital assets depend on price fluctuations. Over two days, the price of a cryptocurrency can change by several percent, which for a large deal means a noticeable difference in monetary terms.
"For saving a fraud victim, the price is justified. For business or portfolio management, this is already an imposed market risk," Mokrov noted.
The expert also drew attention to possible changes in the approach to self-custody of digital assets. If a user purchases cryptocurrency but cannot freely transfer it to their own non-custodial wallet, this may change the very principle of asset ownership.
"A 48-hour cooling-off period is capable of reducing the number of impulsive transfers and genuinely saving some people. But it will only be effective as an element of a smart system, not as a concrete wall for everyone. Otherwise, honest users will wait two days, and fraudsters will slip through the service entrance," Mokrov summarized.
On May 2, Anton Nemkin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy and federal coordinator of the "Digital Russia" party project, stated that fraudsters have begun luring Russians into applying for "virtual cards" on Telegram to supposedly pay for purchases abroad and subscriptions to foreign services. Using the obtained information, the scammers provide the victim with details of non-existent cards and, in return, gain access to real banking data under the pretext of "topping up" or "linking."
