As the war continued to rage, ruble-denominated Bitcoin values rose sharply. Authorities are now looking for ways to minimize use in dodging financial sanctions. And while the recent activity demonstrated that a collapsing ruble might be driving Russians into Bitcoin, FTX CEO – Sam Bankman-Fried – believes the sanctions have made it difficult for them to access digital assets.
“Russia Itself Is Almost a Little Bit of an Exception”
In the last maintenance with CNBC, SBF acknowledged witnessing a huge amount of digital asset activity from Ukraine over the past few weeks. He also cited the need for a stable source of value in addition to concerns over the existing fiat system as reasons for the surge. Speaking of Russia, the executive said,
“I think Russia itself is almost a little bit of an exception to that because of the sanctions imposed that have made it difficult for people to access digital assets as well as anything else. But I think in surrounding areas, we have definitely seen an uptick in activity.”
SBF in circumventing sanctions in the DeFi sector
Many crypto-asset platforms and exchanges have resisted multiple calls to block Russian users as a whole. At the same time, the traditional financial system has decided to completely isolate Russia by cutting it off from the international payment system SWIFT. As a result, the country’s financial institutions, such as banks, are the most affected as the decisions have limited their ability to tap into their foreign currency reserves.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) is yet another route through which Russian oligarchs may obscure crypto transactions, as noted by many experts. However, FTX CEO believes that with blockchain tech underpinning the decentralized systems, AML, KYC checks, and anti-sanctions evasion activity happening, violations may not be easy.
He also said that there are software tracking tools that detect fiat movements in the digital asset ecosystem.
“You can trace through what happened in DeFi systems and often – where this ends up getting to – where people are attempting to get their fiat currencies into the digital assets ecosystem in the first place or where they are looking to cash out and that acts as a barrier between the cryptocurrency world and the traditional financial ecosystem. There is a ton of AML and KYC checks and anti-sanctions evasion activity happening around there.”
Several measures are taken by the Western authorities as well as their allies to fill the gaps. As reported by CryptoPotatothe Japanese financial regulator ensures that these financial sanctions are applied effectively.
