Recently, Russia has been imposed financial sanctions due to its war against Ukraine.
But, many experts are worried about the escape route that the Russian oligarchs can find through the cryptocurrency market. This has come to light after the vice president of Ukraine, put up a request to freeze Russian crypto addresses. Also, many cryptocurrency exchanges have mentioned that they will not stop servicing the accounts under Russians. This has sparked some major issues in light of the regulatory sanctions.
That is the reason why Hillary Clinton has shown her disappointment in these cryptocurrency exchanges and in the Biden government. She has strongly demanded frameworks to be placed to regulate the cryptocurrency market.
In a recent interview, Clinton stated her disappointment in some of these exchanges. She also stated that these exchanges mentioned libertarianism as one of their major reasons behind not freezing the addresses.
She said that she wants all types of economic sanctions to be imposed on Russia, and they also should be isolated from the other global economic transactions. She also said that cryptocurrency can be a major escape route for the Russian oligarchs. And therefore treasury department alongside the EU should take strict actions to regulate and monitor the cryptocurrency market.
As per reports, even the world’s largest exchange of cryptocurrency, Binance, has announced that they will try to freeze the oligarch accounts of Russia. These accounts are the ones that are imposed with sanctions. However, they have also mentioned that the general public accounts will not be frozen on the exchange. They mentioned that freezing all trading accounts on the exchange of Russians is against the core rule of the crypto market. Alongside, finance, Kraken has denied the request to freeze the Russian crypto accounts.
She demands the crypto market and the treasury division to work alongside and fix the leaks and gaps in the crypt market. These leaks and gaps as mentioned can help in easy avoidance of the sanction imposed.
Time and again Clinton has shown her concerns over the lack of regulation on the cryptocurrency market. She has talked about the easy inclusion and acceptance in the crypto trading market that can cause instability in the nations.
After the sanctions and Clinton’s statements, the ruble fell drastically. However, the most popular cryptocurrency, Ethereum, and Bitcoin value increased by 11 and 14 percent respectively.
What is MiCA?
Market in cryptocurrency assets or MiCA is legislation that is being pushed by the European parliament at the moment. This legislation is being under the works to avoid any type of asset laundering in the cryptocurrency class.
Now that European Union members and the USA has imposed strict sanctions on Russia. They are worried that many would try to launder money and evade sanctions with the help of cryptocurrencies. ECB president too has supported this new legislation and has requested the parliament of the EU to execute the same as soon as possible. This will help supervise the cryptocurrency market as well and will help reduce chances of asset laundering through the market.
As cryptocurrency is a highly unregulated market with no governmental supervision in place. This makes it a possible place for the unsanctioned movement of the assets despite strict financial penalties imposed on Russia.
