With the concerns of Janet Yellen and Hillary Clinton notwithstanding, there isn’t enough cryptocurrency in the world to bail out Russia from the economic hole which it now finds itself to be settling into. Even if there were a large enough supply, it probably wouldn’t enable the state to escape the scourge of a Western embargo.

As David Carlisle, director of policy and regulatory affairs at Elliptic, told Cointelegraph: “It’s critical to keep in mind that even where nefarious actors attempt to use crypto, law enforcement can trace this activity owing to its transparency, and crypto businesses can use solutions such as blockchain analytics to comply with sanctions requirements.”