A7A5 Stablecoin Faces Scrutiny as Analytics Firms Challenge Trading Volume Claims

A7A5, a sanctioned ruble-backed stablecoin created to support Russian cross-border payments outside Western financial channels, is facing growing scrutiny after blockchain analytics firms challenged its reported transaction activity.

The stablecoin issuer says A7A5 averages roughly $205 million in daily trading volume and processed $34.4 billionin transactions between Jan. 1 and June 17. Oleg Ogienko, A7A5's director for regulatory affairs, attributed most of the token's activity to decentralized finance (DeFi), where transactions occur directly between crypto wallets without relying on centralized exchanges or identity verification.

However, blockchain intelligence firms TRM Labs and Elliptic dispute those figures. TRM Labs analyst Chris Keegan said the firm's research estimates A7A5's average daily trading volume at about $75 million, with activity steadily declining in recent months. He also claimed that around 34% of observed transactions appear to be circular fund movements that may artificially inflate trading volume.

Keegan added that most activity seems linked to business-to-business transfers involving the Russia-connected crypto exchange Grinex, with transaction volumes dropping sharply on weekends. He argued there is little evidence of significant organic adoption outside A7A5's own ecosystem.

Elliptic co-founder Tom Robinson echoed those concerns, saying monthly A7A5 transaction volumes have fallen more than 90% since January and are down 96% from last year's peak following sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union and United Kingdom, as well as Grinex's collapse earlier this year. Robinson said the issuer's reported figures may be accurate in isolation but fail to reflect the broader decline in usage.

Ogienko rejected the criticism, arguing that traditional crypto data platforms such as CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko and DeFiLlama rely heavily on centralized exchange data and fail to capture DeFi activity, resulting in an incomplete picture of A7A5's network usage.

CoinDesk noted that neither A7A5's claims nor those from blockchain analytics firms were independently verified.

Launched in Kyrgyzstan in early 2025, A7A5 is backed by deposits at Russia's sanctioned Promsvyazbank and has been widely viewed as a tool for facilitating transactions beyond Western sanctions. Analysts say the dispute highlights the growing challenge of accurately measuring DeFi activity, particularly for sanctioned crypto assets operating largely outside centralized trading platforms.