Ukraine’s request to ban Russians from the crypto market was rejected by crypto exchange giants such as Binance and Coinbase, unless required by law.
Although there are no official decrees forcing exchanges to ban Russian IPs, many did not need to. However, following the official US move to enhance sanctions on Russia, five local South Korean exchanges announced yesterday that they will ban Russian IPs and freeze their accounts.
These five exchanges were the only ones licensed to issue crypto transactions to fiat. Thus, this unified ban prevented Russian users from withdrawing their crypto assets within South Korea.
Singapore and Switzerland announce sanctions
Today, Singapore made an unexpected announcement and implemented sanctions against the Central Bank of Russia, its cryptocurrency transactions, and an export ban on military and electronic products.
Given the financial importance of Singapore to the region, this decision is expected to significantly affect Russia. Also, due to equal importance, Singapore had not imposed sanctions on any nation in decades. This rare decision made Singapore the first country in Southeast Asia to impose sanctions on Russia.
Following the example of Singapore and South Korea, Switzerland also announced that it would freeze crypto assets belonging to Russian users. A senior official from the Ministry of Finance said:
“It is necessary to freeze crypto assets because Switzerland wants to protect the integrity of its blockchain industry.”
The EU had previously imposed sanctions on traditional financial transactions and recently announced that it would extend these sanctions to the crypto market.
Japan will also sanction Russia
Although they have not yet taken an official step, Japan also announced that they were examining Russia’s tendency to rely on cryptocurrencies to circumvent sanctions closely and implementing restrictions to prevent that from happening. Japan’s Finance Minister said:
“We are closely watching deals situations like crypto assets and SPFS to ensure the effectiveness of sanctions against Russia.”
It seems likely that the crypto community will hear more news about the sanctions against Russia, starting with Japan.
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This post Kicking Russia Out of Crypto One Country at a Time: Singapore, Switzerland, and Japan to Join Sanctions
was published first on https://cryptoslate.com/pushing-russia-out-of-crypto-one-country-at-a-time-singapore-switzerland-and-japan-will-join-in-the-sanctions/
