Russian patents office green-lights Tether’s tokenisation trademark request

Russia’s patents office has granted Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, approval for a trademark for the Hadron tokenisation platform.

Tether submitted its application to the Russian Federal Intellectual Property Office, known as Rospatent, in October 2025, the Russian newspaper RIA Novosti reported on January 10.

Rospatent reviewed the application late last year and approved it earlier this month, the outlet wrote.

The development indicates Tether is looking to get in on Russia’s fast-growing crypto and private blockchain market, which is currently dominated by large domestic banks and other large Russian companies.

Expanding market

Rospatent’s decision means Tether now holds exclusive rights to the trademark in the country, with its validity expiring on October 3, 2035.

The government body notes that trademark “covers blockchain financial services, cryptocurrency trading and exchange, crypto-related financial advice, crypto payment processing, and related consultancy services.”

Tether launched Hadron in November 2024, calling it a tokenisation platform that lets firms release fractionalised stocks, bonds, rewards points, corporate equity, and commodities as digital tokens on a blockchain network.

However, Tether’s recent history in Russia is chequered. Less than a year ago, Tether froze $28 million worth of USDT on the Russian crypto exchange Garantex, apparently at the behest of the US Secret Service.

At the time, Garantex said that Tether had “entered the war against the Russian crypto market.”

“Please note that all USDT held in Russian wallets is now under threat,” Garantex said. In May, the Russian central bank followed up by updating its rules on crypto trading within its cross-border trade sandbox.

The sandbox allows Russian firms to use crypto as a payment tool with international partners, using unnamed crypto exchanges that operate under the central bank’s supervision.

The rules noted that coins used in the sandbox “must not be related to securities issued by hostile issuers.”

Experts told the Russian media outlet RBC this would necessarily include both USDT and Circle’s USD Coin.

Tokenisation gathers momentum

The central bank has since followed up with other warnings about the dangers for Russians of using coins and exchanges that are subject to sanctions-related requests from US, UK, and EU regulators.

Tokenisation is already a multi-billion-dollar industry in Russia. The central bank announced in December that the Russian private blockchain-powered token industry is already worth $13 billion.

Russian banks, metals firms, and stock exchanges have released tokens tied to the value of precious metals, real estate, and commodities like cocoa beans.

Yields on short-term digital tokens last year outperformed short-term bond yields by an average of 1.7%, Vitaly Plotnikov, the deputy director of the central bank’s financial market infrastructure department, told the Russian news agency Interfax in December.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.