ECB chief stated that Russia uses crypto to evade sanctions

Christine Lagarde believes the Russians are converting rubles into cryptocurrency and stablecoins

23.03.2022 - 12:00

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What’s new? European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde has stated signs that point to attempts by wealthy Russians to evade sanctions by using digital assets. Lagarde claims that the ruble has begun to be converted into cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, Bloomberg reports.

Bloomberg’s material

What else did the EU representatives say about the sanctions? There is now the highest volume of transactions to exchange rubles for stablecoins, the ECB president said. Cryptocurrencies are “certainly being used as a way to try to circumvent the sanctions” that have been imposed by many countries around the world against Russia.

According to Kaiko, as of March 22, the combined trading volume of bitcoins and USDT stablecoins in pairs with the ruble was less than $9 million. While the total trading volume in all currencies is between $20 billion and $40 billion. Earlier, the co-founder of Chainalysis stated that Russians do not use cryptocurrency to circumvent sanctions.

How have the sanctions affected Russia? A bill to block Russians on crypto exchanges has been introduced in the US Congress. Major digital service providers have already started blocking users from Russia, including the Metamask cryptocurrency wallet and the exchanges Kuna, WhiteBIT, and CEX.io. In March, Coinbase blocked 25 000 Russian addresses suspected of illegal activity.

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