Experts say that Russia could be subject to sanctions for its unprovoked invasion Ukraine. This would hinder growth in the crypto industry, worth multibillions of dollars.

U.S. officials made a targeted attack on Russia this week bitcoinBitRiver, a mining company in BitRiver’s latest round of sanctionsThese actions are intended to harm Russia’s economy. Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Treasury Department saysRussia is being questioned about whether it might be willing to monetize vast oil reserves, and other natural resources in order to power-intensively mine crypto currency for funding and circumventing western sanctions.

In an email note, David Carlisle (vice president of policy and regulatory affairs, crypto compliance firm Elliptic) stated that “This is a strong signal from OFAC to stop Russia from evading sanctions via crypto.”

BitRiver’s subsidiaries and BitRiver will be unable to access U.S. crypto-exchanges or mining equipment due to the US sanctions. Crypto mining — the process of validating new digital currency transactions — requires specialized computers that consume lots of energy.

This move shows that U.S. officials “deeply concern” Russia’s ability to use its natural resources for crypto mining in order to avoid sanctions. IranAnd North KoreaCarlisle mentioned that people have always been involved in criminal activities.

Global regulators remain concerned about the potential misuse of Bitcoin production to evade sanctions from Russia. International Monetary Fund.

“Crypto mining, while nowhere near a replacement for the assets frozen by Russian sanctions, avoids the fiat-to-crypto ‘on-ramps’ and crypto-to-fiat ‘off-ramps’ at centralized virtual currency exchanges, thereby bypassing sanctions screening,” said Anand Sithian, counsel at Crowell & Moring and a former trial attorney in the criminal division of the Department of Justice’s asset forfeiture and money-laundering section.

Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, announced that its Russian service will be limited as a result of the incident. fifth wave of EU sanctionsMoscow.

Russian Binance accounts containing more than 10,000 Euros in digital currency, will not be allowed to trade or deposit funds. Instead, they can withdraw the money.

Binance declared in an article that “While these measures may be restrictive to ordinary Russian citizens but Binance must still lead the industry to implement these sanctions.” updateOn its website. “We think all major exchanges need to follow the same rules.”

Russia hosts a vast cryptocurrency market. The Kremlin estimates Russians own roughly 10 trillion rubles ($124 billion)The value of digital assets

While it’s unclear where the data is coming from, evidence suggests that Russians are increasingly turning to cryptocurrency as an alternative. the rubleAs a result of the country’s economic isolation, the currency plummets.

CryptoCompare data shows that the total volume of crypto-denominated trading reached 111.4 billion rubles ($1.4 Billion) in March. This is much more than it was in previous months. The April activity has dropped to 19.2 billion rubles, which is a decrease in volume. Binance accounted for 77% trades on the ruble-crypto exchange most used in March.

According to CryptoCompare, the ruble-crypto trade volume reached 420 billion rubles or $5 billion in six months ended March 2022.

Hayter claimed that Russia has a love-hate relationship with digital assets. Russia’s central banking is advocating for an a banVladimir Putin has a number of concerns about mining and the use cryptocurrency. regulateThey are better.

Hayter says that Russia’s regime and its oligarchs may see digital assets as an opportunity to raise funds for activities beyond Russia.