What new EU sanctions mean for crypto exchanges and their Russian clients
Nine months into the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, sanctions against the latter have continued to grow at an aggressive pace. This time around, legislators for the European Union announced that they are introducing a complete ban on all cross-border crypto payments between Russia and its citizens.
To elaborate, a prohibition of all “crypto-asset wallets, accounts, or custody services, irrespective of the amount of the wallet,” has now been initiated by the EU in response to Russia’s continued annexation of Ukrainian land, repeated mobilization of troops within the country and threats of nuclear escalation.
It is worth noting that previous sanctions had limited cryptocurrency payments between Russian to EU wallets to 10,000 euros ($9,700). The new ban seeks to deprive the Kremlin’s military power while curtailing critical components of its industrial complex.
In light of the EU’s aforementioned sanctions, a whole host of cryptocurrency exchanges popular in the region — including LocalBitcoins, Crypto.com and Blockchain.com — issued emails to their customers telling them to withdraw their funds as soon as possible since they would be unable to make use of their services henceforth.
It is worth considering that as of September 2022, LocalBitcoins accounted for a whopping 8% of Russia’s crypto trade volume, the exchange’s largest client base by far. Moreover, before the ban, Russian users were responsible for facilitating just under 20% of all total BTC trading volumes on the exchange.
Binance, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, is also working toward implementing the new restrictions. However, a representative for the firm told Cointelegraph that these changes may take some time to go live, with there being no
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