Cryptocurrency exchanges report on sanction compliance

Following the new regulation adopted by the US Department of the Treasury, cryptocurrency exchanges are blocking accounts and wallet addresses of individuals targeted by the US sanctions on Russia.

The US-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase published a report on the number of accounts that are blocked and the efforts made by the company. The Coinbase report states that 25,000 addresses related to Russian individuals under the sanction regime are now blocked.

Coinbase also pointed out its active compliance with all sanctions imposed by the USA: ‘Similarly, we use geofencing controls to prevent access to the Coinbase website, as well as our products and services, by anyone using an IP address in a sanctioned geography (e.g., Crimea, North Korea, Syria, and Iran). We routinely subject our sanctions compliance program to internal testing and independent audits by third-parties.’
In related development, Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, denied the notion of massive use of cryptocurrency by Russian individuals. He also pointed out that the traceability of cryptocurrency transactions gives little room for evasion of the sanction regime.