Former first lady and presidential candidate Hilary Clinton spoke with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC about Russia’s use of cryptocurrency to evade Russian sanctions.
The Biden administration’s imposed Russian sanctions have included a request by the US that crypto exchanges help them prevent Russia evading economic sanctions in line with Biden’s 2021 executive order that bans “deceptive or structured transactions or dealings to circumvent any United States sanctions, including through the use of digital currencies or assets or the use of physical assets”.
Clinton noted in the interview that she was “disappointed to see that some of the so-called crypto exchanges, not all of them, but some of them, are refusing to end transactions with Russia,” adding it was important to “do as much as possible to isolate Russian economic activity right now.”
The former Secretary of State referred to the circumnavigation of Russian sanctions in her interview, noting that she feared cryptocurrency would allow russia to evade certain economic sanctions:
“I would hope somebody at the Treasury Department is trying to figure out how to rein in the leaky valves in the crypto market that might allow Russia to escape the full weight of the sanctions,”
Russia and its oligarchs have had several rounds of sanctions imposed on them by the international community, with the US recently imposing new sanctions to “maximize the impact on Putin and Russia”. The sanctions imposed on a new list of high net worth individuals include assets held in the US to be frozen, as well as their property being blocked from use, according to a fact sheet by the White House.
Gopax, a South Korea-based crypto exchange, revealed on Wednesday that it had frozen 20 accounts from the country as well as having blocked all Russian IP addresses from its platform, following requests from the US and the European Union.
Despite concerns that Russia is still able to manipulate cryptocurrency to evade sanctions, an overwhelming amount of support from the crypto community for the Ukrainian people has been witnessed over the last two weeks. The Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov shared BTC, ETH and TRON-based TRC-20 USDT wallets on February 26th while many other Ukraine based crypto fundraisers have been set up to aid the country in its fight against russia.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
