Russia's sanctioned stablecoin makes many claims outsiders cannot check. Its interest rate is the exception: every payment is written on a public ledger. We read all 358 of them. The one promise anyone can verify has been kept, to the basis point, and the next test comes Friday.
The token paid 6 to 8 percent while Moscow's benchmark sat above 16. On Feb 10, 2026, one day after the issuer changed its payout policy, the posted rate jumped to 15 percent and began tracking the key rate at a fixed one-point discount. Shaded band: detail shown in Fig. 02. Rates from 358 on-chain interest postings; key rate from Bank of Russia decisions.
Every reset lands exactly 1.00 point below the new key rate, four to five days after the decision. All four 2026 decisions fell on Fridays; three of four resets landed the following Tuesday. Empty markers: the July 24 meeting and the posting we expect by July 28.
A7A5 is a digital token that stands in for the Russian ruble. It was built to move money for clients Western banks will not touch. The United States sanctioned its network on August 14, 2025, and the ledger records the aftershock: over the next three weeks the issuer zeroed out sanctioned wallets and reissued more than 80 percent of the token's supply to new addresses, a maneuver the Financial Times reported was designed to cut the wallet trail that enforcement teams follow. New minting stopped on September 2, 2025 and, on the Tron ledger we monitor, has never resumed. The European Union banned the token by name that October, effective November 25, and by late December the flows we track had reorganized into tight, repeating circuits through a small cluster of accounts. Its issuer, a company registered in Kyrgyzstan and banked at Promsvyazbank, the state lender that finances Russia's defense industry, publishes reassurances about audits and reserves that no outsider can check.
One claim is different. The issuer says holders earn interest at Russia's benchmark interest rate, the central bank's key rate, minus one percentage point. Interest arrives as a small credit to every holder's balance each business day, the way a bank posts interest to an old passbook account. And each credit is recorded on a public blockchain ledger that nobody, including the issuer, can edit after the fact. A company that cannot be audited from outside wrote one of its promises in permanent ink.
We read the full record: 358 interest postings since the token launched in January 2025. For the first year, the payments drifted between 6 and 8 percent annually while ruble deposits in Moscow paid 15 percent and more. Then, on February 10, 2026, one day after the issuer announced it would pass "nearly all income to holders," the posted rate jumped to 15 percent. The Bank of Russia has cut its key rate four times since. Each time, four to five days later, the token's rate stepped down to exactly one point below the new benchmark. Five settings, five matches, zero exceptions. The discipline held even in April, when the token's main exchange collapsed mid-cycle and the scheduled reset arrived anyway, on time and on formula.
Verifying the interest rate says nothing about the reserves; those claims remain unverifiable. It does establish something narrower and, for anyone tracking how Russia banks beyond the reach of sanctions, more useful: the payout desk of this instrument runs on Moscow's monetary policy, visibly, on a public ledger, at a fixed one-point margin.
The next test is on the calendar. The Bank of Russia meets Friday, July 24. If it cuts, the formula says the token's rate steps down about four days later, to exactly one point below the new rate. If it holds, the token should sit still at 13.25 percent. We will publish the result either way.