The Biden administration reminded cryptocurrency exchanges that Russian users on sanctions lists should not receive digital currency trading and exchange services.
According to Bloomberg, the White House is holding relevant discussions with operators of the largest cryptocurrency platforms. According to US officials, Russians who are on the sanctions list may well begin to use cryptocurrencies to circumvent sanctions.
As a White House official emphasized, the Biden administration does not believe that cryptocurrencies can really replace the US dollar, which, in their opinion, is “widely used in Russia.” However, officials want to make sure that digital assets are not used to circumvent sanctions.
Bloomberg journalists interviewed representatives of the largest sites about blocking users from Russia. The Binance employee emphasized that the exchange will not block all users, but the company is taking steps to identify wallets owned by Russians from the sanctions lists.
FTX is working with officials in the US and the Bahamas to meet regulatory requirements. A Coinbase spokesperson said the exchange blocks transactions to wallets that are identified by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control or the exchange’s internal systems as sanctioned users.
According to CoinDesk, the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine sent out a request to the largest cryptocurrency exchanges to block user accounts from Russia. Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Mikhail Fedorov published on Twitter a request for cryptocurrency exchanges to block the funds of all users from Russia.
Some small exchanges followed this request, but the management of large cryptocurrency exchanges turned out to be more reasonable. Kraken CEO Jesse Powell said that if the citizens of any country were blocked for government aggression, then the exchange would be the first to block the Americans.
