- Binance will block Russian user accounts that are on the sanctions list.
- Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov called on various firms not only to freeze addresses linked to Russian and Belarusian politicians, but also to sabotage ordinary users, a proposal that Bianance refused.
Following Russia’s military action towards Ukraine, the world has repelled this attack with sanctions. These came from all areas: sports, cultural and also economic. In this way, cryptocurrency exchanges have also joined a series of sanctions and Binance made important announcements at this sensitive time.
The largest exchange in the world, with almost $30 million weekly visits and a transaction volume of 2$5 billion dollars during the past 24 hours, explained that will block the accounts of Russian users who are among those sanctioned. It is worth noting that many Russian accounts abroad, such as those in Switzerland, for example, were paralyzed.
“We are blocking those who are on the sanctions list and making sure that all sanctions are fully met,” expressed a representative of Binance, as published B.itcoinist. The measure could be extended indefinitely, until the armed conflict ceases.
Ukraine calls for exchanges to join sanctions
Binance’s decision began at the request of Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who spoke to centralized exchanges via Twitter. His demand was greater than the determination made:
“It is crucial to freeze not only addresses linked to Russian and Belarusian politicians, but also to sabotage ordinary users.”
The exchange led by Changpeng Zhao, which would have such a possibility since it has all its users registered with name, surname, nationality and residence, refused such a prohibitive measure. The fact of restricting operations would bring down one of the fundamental pillars of cryptocurrencies, such as freedom.
Exchanges limit prohibitive measures
Binance was not the only exchange to take this action. Kraken did not do so either, and CEO Jessee Powel stated that they cannot freeze their Russian clients’ accounts without a legal requirement to do so. kCoin, which is another of the big exchanges, did not fold to size.
For its part Dmarket, a start up born in Ukraine by locals, did carry out the strong prohibitions. The company dedicated to NFTs and virtual items within the metaverse broke its relations with Russia and Belarus and no longer allows the registration of new users from that country and froze existing accounts.
Despite the fact that Ukraine did not have the general support of the world’s largest exchanges, cryptocurrencies are playing a key role in the war. Ukrainians are being financed through Bitcoin, after the government published their wallet on social networks.
As published New York Times, Ukraine has already raised more than $22 million in cryptocurrencies. They also receive Ethereum and Tether. The rise in the price of digital gold during the last few hours also benefited them significantly.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has escalated considerably and cryptocurrencies can play an important role. Centralized exchanges have already taken some actions.
This economic blockade is the continuation of other actions taken by Europe and the United States, among others. US President Joe Biden announced sanctions on Russian banks and also on their military banks. While, interbank messaging networks and the international payment system SWIFT, who is in charge of managing cross-border transactions, they stopped the possibility of transfers of funds to Russian banks.
You might be interested in: