Europe bans all crypto wallets to Russia in new sanctions package
by Arthur · October 6, 2022
The European Union has imposed a blanket ban on all crypto services of Russian entities as part of its eighth round of sanctions against the country.
“The existing bans on crypto-assets have been tightened by banning all crypto-active wallets, accounts or custody services, regardless of the size of the wallet,” the EU Commission’s statement said. press release on Thursday.
The original boundary, established in April allowed such services to continue serving Russian wallets with €10,000 or less.
The increased measures are intended as punishment for “Russia’s continued escalation and illegal war against Ukraine,” including the mobilization of additional troops and the open issuance of nuclear threats.
The package will also expand the number of services that can no longer be provided to Russians or Russian authorities, including IT consulting services, legal advice, architecture and engineering services. The commission said Russia is “heavily dependent on importing these services”.
The additional restriction comes the day after the EU concluded some of the key rules of crypto regulation. One of the laws passed included a claim that wallet providers verify the identity of those using their services.
Crypto, sanctions and Russia
Upon the implementation of sanctions in February, both US and European leaders immediately turned their attention to crypto, fearing that the growing industry could help Russia bypass their trade restrictions.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are peer-to-peer and permissionless, which makes it significantly more difficult for Western authorities to throttle trade facilitated through the network.
This has enabled foreign criminal organizations to exploit the technology in both ransomware arrangements and even nuclear weapons financing.
However, there are some limitations: most cryptocurrencies use highly transparent public ledgers, giving the user little privacy for transactions.
As such, it is difficult to move significant funds across the network without experts being able to track down and identify the culprit.
Still, such assurances haven’t stopped Sen. Elizabeth Warren from proposing one bill targeting node validators and software developers who helped facilitate transactions for sanctioned Russian entities in March.
At the time, the crypto think tank was Coin Center called the measure “unnecessary” and “constitutional”.
