Russia - Ukraine war - Exchanges needed for sanctioning

[_act_]

Crypto exchanges consider Ukraine’s call to freeze Russians’ Bitcoin
Mykhailo Fedorov, minister of digital transformation of Ukraine, took to Twitter on Sunday to urge the global cryptocurrency exchanges to block addresses of Russian users.

Mykhailo Fedorov also said it's crucial to freeze not only the addresses linked to Russian and Belarusian politicians, but also to sabotage ordinary users.

Bestchange which is an exchange aggravator that also have a signature campaign on Bitcointalk saw 20% increase recently.

The major exchange used by Russains Binance said it is not going to freeze the account of common citizen that cryptocurrencies are meant to provide greater financial freedom for people across the globe, but that the exchange is taking measures to ensure that sanctions are against sanctioned entities in Russia but minimising the imalct on innocent users.

Some crypto executives believe that sanctions against Russia are eventually inevitable. However, they should target only select persons as the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control usually does.

Kraken CEO Jesse Powell also said that the Kraken exchange will not be able to freeze the accounts of the exchange’s Russian clients without a legal requirement. “Russians should be aware that such a requirement could be imminent,” he added.

Bitcoin was created less than 13 years ago which led to the creation of many other cryptocurrencies, it is now a major importance in the world. Putin talks good on cryptocurrencies  recently before Russai invasion, I think this is part of his plan, that if there are sections, they can resort to cryptocurrencies.

[paxmao]

My take is that US or EU could potentially activate that measure. In that case, the exchanges would need to either comply fully or decide to opt out of the regulations. In the later case, they will be banned from operating in US and EU plus many other countries.

It is no joke to face the consequences of an US ban or sanction, thus exchanges may be forced to decide which side is best. Hint: the level of business in the West is higher in general.

[Gozie51]

I read through the link provided by Op. Not only best exchange will benefit from this rush but more exchange and binance has already said it won't block Russian hodlers, I guess maybe that's because China and Russia are being aligns. Yes this may be the beginning of another bull for the market because Russians withdrawing fiat and converting to cryptocurrency will certainly cause another rush as they have lots of hodling.

But my personal point about this is I don't wish that they start dragging cryptocurrency exchanges into this kind of politics. Bitcoin is decentralised and they should allow exchanges out of this and not seeking the help of exchange to block any hodlers whether Russia or Ukraine. Exchanges shouldn't take side but to be open to who ever in the cause of this fight. Staying neutral will give cryptocurrency an edge when this whole thing is ended.

[DooMAD]

I don't see how it is beneficial to hit ordinary Russians who may not support what Putin is doing.  And this is ultimately just another reason why people shouldn't use Exchanges or Webwallets as though they were akin to a savings account.  Your funds can be frozen even if you have personally done nothing wrong.  Third party custodians are highly susceptible to political matters and cannot be trusted to serve in your best interests.  

[Poker Player]

I feel appealed for my part because I advertise for Best Change. I had seen on Best_Change's profile that it says location "Moscow" but I wasn't sure if it's a business located in Russia or what.

I don't see how it is beneficial to hit ordinary Russians who may not support what Putin is doing.  

Me neither. Honestly, the argument seems like bullshit to me. I understand the position of the Ukrainian minister seeing himself attacked and the reaction is to defend himself trying to screw not only Putin but as many Russian citizens as possible.

I am not surprised that Binance has refused, as I share the argument of not making the just pay for the sinners. Trying to block certain users, politically relevant and if they are dumb enough to have their coins on the exchange is fine with me, but blocking the ordinary citizen who is trying to escape the ruin of the ruble I don't see the point.

The blacklist of coins that have gone through mixers or casinos has not been very successful and this is on the way to the same thing. Besides, with this perspective, those who are not fools will take their coins out of the exchange to hard wallets ASAP.

[dimonstration]

I read through the link provided by Op. Not only best exchange will benefit from this rush but more exchange and binance has already said it won't block Russian hodlers, I guess maybe that's because China and Russia are being aligns. Yes this may be the beginning of another bull for the market because Russians withdrawing fiat and converting to cryptocurrency will certainly cause another rush as they have lots of hodling.

But my personal point about this is I don't wish that they start dragging cryptocurrency exchanges into this kind of politics. Bitcoin is decentralised and they should allow exchanges out of this and not seeking the help of exchange to block any hodlers whether Russia or Ukraine. Exchanges shouldn't take side but to be open to who ever in the cause of this fight. Staying neutral will give cryptocurrency an edge when this whole thing is ended.

I doubt that this event will create a bull run due to the fact that russian ruble is decreasing value overtime and no onewill gonna sell them Bitcoin except Exchange which will give them an incredible rate for there sinking value money. Russian will not gonna burn there fiat in exchange for piece of crypto which they can not still use world wide since they are ban in the rest of the market.

It's either they willmjust hold it until the price back to normal or just spend it in there own market inside there country. They are isolated to the world so moving asset into crypto is pointless since crypto price is affected by there war too.

[el kaka22]

Crypto became a big place for Russia to use after this. The talks about Russia banning crypto will have to be halted and the Russians will try their best to make global business via crypto from now out. It is not like it is fully legal for companies in other nations to start accepting crypto from Russians instead of fiat and be fine, but regular people could trade between each other.

Like you can hire a developer from Russia to work as a small startup, who would know? Or you could work for a Russian person and write content for them, who would know? At the end of the deal, we are going to end up with small retail investors being fine and the big names not be able to, which is great. Why? Because it is not Russian citizens that caused this, it's their dictator, we should not blame Russians for it.

[_act_]

I read through the link provided by Op. Not only best exchange will benefit from this rush but more exchange

Also in the OP that many Ukrainian exchanges increased in trading volume, but bestchange is not an exchange, it is an exchange aggregator which is well known.

binance has already said it won't block Russian hodlers, I guess maybe that's because China and Russia are being aligns.
But my personal point about this is I don't wish that they start dragging cryptocurrency exchanges into this kind of politics. Bitcoin is decentralised and they should allow exchanges out of this and not seeking the help of exchange to block any hodlers whether Russia or Ukraine. Exchanges shouldn't take side but to be open to who ever in the cause of this fight. Staying neutral will give cryptocurrency an edge when this whole thing is ended.

Bitcoin is decentralized, altcoins too are decentralized, but they are only decentralized when you are making use of noncustododial wallet and decentralized exchanges. Once you begin to use centralized exchanges and wallets, then you have no full control.

[Leviathan.007]

I do not expect to see the cryptocurrency exchanges suspend the Russian accounts and support the sanctioning Russia because due to the economic sanctions from other countries Russian should use the cryptocurrencies and bitcoin instead of fiat money and increasing the usage of cryptocurrencies from Russians can make the exchanges richer because of increase of the trades they do and the fee the exchanges get, so changes will still doing their job for their own benefits, in the other hand if they suspend all the Russian accounts, Russians can use decentralized changes.

[DooMAD]

I do not expect to see the cryptocurrency exchanges suspend the Russian accounts and support the sanctioning Russia

Some exchanges may not have a choice in the matter.  If the nation any particular exchange is based in decides that sanctions must apply, then an exchange may have to abide by that.  Binance, for example, say they're based in the Caymans, so if the Cayman Islands ever decide to enforce sanctions, Binance could be forced to comply with that.

Plus, if Russians aren't able to make fiat deposits or withdrawals as their bank have been barred from SWIFT, it won't matter as much what actions the exchanges do or don't take anyway.

[hyudien]

I feel appealed for my part because I advertise for Best Change. I had seen on Best_Change's profile that it says location "Moscow" but I wasn't sure if it's a business located in Russia or what.

I don't see how it is beneficial to hit ordinary Russians who may not support what Putin is doing.  

Me neither. Honestly, the argument seems like bullshit to me. I understand the position of the Ukrainian minister seeing himself attacked and the reaction is to defend himself trying to screw not only Putin but as many Russian citizens as possible.

That's right, is it possible that the nature of decentralization has now become the government's control to hit everything that originally wasn't too related. So Russia does receive sanctions, but linking all sectors even to the point that cryptocurrencies are toyed with for political gain would be very unethical. Because this is the first time cryptocurrency has become a tool to kill and bring down opponents of certain countries for the sake of interest.

I prefer crypto not to be carried around, and focusing on ensuring the safety of Ukrainian citizens should be a top priority. Sanctions other than cryptocurrencies please, but for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies must be out of certain political affairs.

[Fortify]

Crypto exchanges consider Ukraine’s call to freeze Russians’ Bitcoin
Mykhailo Fedorov, minister of digital transformation of Ukraine, took to Twitter on Sunday to urge the global cryptocurrency exchanges to block addresses of Russian users.

Mykhailo Fedorov also said it's crucial to freeze not only the addresses linked to Russian and Belarusian politicians, but also to sabotage ordinary users.

Bestchange which is an exchange aggravator that also have a signature campaign on Bitcointalk saw 20% increase recently.

The major exchange used by Russains Binance said it is not going to freeze the account of common citizen that cryptocurrencies are meant to provide greater financial freedom for people across the globe, but that the exchange is taking measures to ensure that sanctions are against sanctioned entities in Russia but minimising the imalct on innocent users.

Some crypto executives believe that sanctions against Russia are eventually inevitable. However, they should target only select persons as the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control usually does.

Kraken CEO Jesse Powell also said that the Kraken exchange will not be able to freeze the accounts of the exchange’s Russian clients without a legal requirement. “Russians should be aware that such a requirement could be imminent,” he added.

Bitcoin was created less than 13 years ago which led to the creation of many other cryptocurrencies, it is now a major importance in the world. Putin talks good on cryptocurrencies  recently before Russai invasion, I think this is part of his plan, that if there are sections, they can resort to cryptocurrencies.

Exchanges are playing a dangerous game if they refuse to go along with the sanctions that almost every other industry has enacted in the last few days. We are in unprecedented times and it feels like the recent announcement by binance that they will do nothing could backfire greatly against them. There are certain measures that could and may be taken which could really damage them. They also said they want to list like coinbase soon which could be taken off the cards if they continue acting with arrogance.

[jc12345]

As per Reuters both Coinbase and Binance re-iterated today they wont ban Russian accounts.

"March 4 (Reuters) - Cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase Global Inc and Binance reiterated on Friday they have no plans to preemptively ban all Russians from using their platforms."  Source

Since these exchanges do KYC they might decide to target individual accounts of people on the sanctioned list. For the rest they may look into large transactions or unusual activity to identify circumvention attempts.

[Lucius]

On the one hand, it is obvious that good or bad people cannot be filtered individually and that CEX will try to resist any demand to ban Russian accounts - not because they want to take a side in the war, but because they do not want to lose profits, and that is the most important thing to them. Yet if we look at the situation from the angle of Ukrainians fighting for their country and for their lives, and all those who could be next in line to be occupied - then Russia should be isolated to the extent that ordinary people rebel and overthrow the current government.

If the majority of Russians support the current government (and I do not see millions on the streets), then that good minority unfortunately has to pay the price of the bad majority. As things stand now big CEX have two choices, join the sanctions or wait for someone to accuse them for providing support to Russia regime. If you exclude someone from SWIFT, then it is logical to disable them from using any crypto exchanges that would help them avoid sanctions.

[noorman0]

Exchanges are playing a dangerous game if they refuse to go along with the sanctions that almost every other industry has enacted in the last few days.

The sanctions they will impose are Russian users who may be certain to lose a giant number of subscribers. As long as there is no pressure from regulation which is the biggest operational threat, I think the exchanges will continue to serve Russian customers if the potential business profits are still in their favor. And one thing that is important is that the stock exchange only has business interests that will not mix with the political situation.

[user210822]

On the one hand, it is obvious that good or bad people cannot be filtered individually and that CEX will try to resist any demand to ban Russian accounts - not because they want to take a side in the war, but because they do not want to lose profits, and that is the most important thing to them.

Is there any evidence that sanctions list is acting in a way is was mentioned? Let me jump over the own head once and perform a Devils Advocate mask for a moment. Does anyone really believe that banning out Russian users never mind  their status in above mentioned sanctions list has anything to do with their political actors? Like in North Korea for example? Or Iran? Come on...!

Yet if we look at the situation from the angle of Ukrainians fighting for their country and for their lives, and all those who could be next in line to be occupied - then Russia should be isolated to the extent that ordinary people rebel and overthrow the current government.

There's a lot of historical parallels when castles doors were open from the inside. In a rare cases this was done for sake of ideology. Mostly financial reasons...

If the majority of Russians support the current government (and I do not see millions on the streets), then that good minority unfortunately has to pay the price of the bad majority. As things stand now big CEX have two choices, join the sanctions or wait for someone to accuse them for providing support to Russia regime. If you exclude someone from SWIFT, then it is logical to disable them from using any crypto exchanges that would help them avoid sanctions.

Just the other day one of my friends from Russia has tried to use his blockchain.com exchange accounts from inside the Russia only. Got banned from his KYC affirmed account... He went through the VPN service to continue the intended transfer and succeeded anyway. Of course some third party was involved here. What's the use then? What a morale could be carried out from this? If the crypto is loosing it's point as anonymous decentralized assets instrument could someone rely on it?  To condemn the disastrous atrocities happening right now one should make a matter of conscience. Not force. There's no smoke with no fire. Fire burns everyone. Not only the party it was intended to harm. Fight fire with fire doesn't work in such case. God save both Ukraine and Russia! Though I can see no way out of this horror in close future...

[NotATether]

Now, of course I oppose Putin's "fuckery" of an operation that is his invasion of Ukraine.

But this move is not going to help anyone, or even Ukraine. It's not even going to stop a single enemy artillery salvo. So, I do not want this proposal to be implemented by exchanges.

It reminds me of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) in the Cold War era.

[user210822]

What is really necessary is fair trial over war criminals. It's vital. So what can be done here is to initiate NFT - Non Fungible Trial. So that every evidence and witness is duly collected and stored as much as required for it. And every single Internet user could see what was committed over his sign in process. Instead of counting buses and identifying street lights they could count corpses and assessing amount of years of condemnation those criminals would spend throughout eternity. Of course it's Utopia. But I'm serious about Trials over blockchain technology. If it works for voting what should stop it to be used over Internet for actual Court with Judges? It could be discussed all over the world! Spread the word!

[DrBeer]

Sanctions against the country of a global terrorist, undermining the foundations of the civilized world and inciting a war against universal values, must be extremely broad and comprehensive! It is impossible to fight a "cancer on a global scale" with undermeasures, or partial measures, the terrorist regime must be destroyed by all available methods, otherwise we ALL will face a situation much worse than in the last century in the form of the Second World War, and today's world problems will seem small to you inconvenience...

[Flexystar]

On the other point of view this could being catastrophic effect on the exchangers. The problem is exchangers can’t really work under the pressure of regulations. If they impose too much which becomes tedious work to maintain the records of every users then that’s extra burden on the shoulders of exchanges and it also becomes hard for the users to maintain their accounts. Many of them wanting to have privacy of their coins but this could become hard with such revaluations.

Now we have to work on our side just because of the politicians game that’s under way.