Many experts have already begun to speculate that although Russia is being heavily sanctioned by the West, they could use cryptocurrencies to circumvent them.
The package of sanctions that the governments of the United States and the European Union have already imposed against Russia include blockades that are already being reflected in the Russian stock market, in its national currency, companies and citizens.
According to recent studies, Russia is a leading country in the adoption of cryptocurrencies, ranking 18th in the global index.
Like all economic markets in the world, the cryptocurrency market also fell due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
After the conflict over Russia’s attacks on Ukraine, and many countries in the world, especially the United States, it has implemented various sanctions on the Russian government of Vladimir Putin, which specialists say they can evade with the use of cryptocurrencies.
This package of sanctions that the governments of the United States and the European Union have already imposed against Russia include blockades that are already being reflected in the Russian stock market, in its national currency, companies and citizens.
This Saturday, February 26, another of the measures that completely impacted the Russian economy was that the White House of the United States together with the nations of the European Union announced the expulsion of “selected” Russian banks from SWIFT, the high security network that connects financial institutions around the world.
According to data from Statista, these measures would have an impact on the country governed by Putin in an energy embargo and would be one of the most serious consequences, since it is estimated that Russia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would fall by almost 3 percent if all imports and exports of gas were stopped. An oil embargo, on the other hand, would cause a 1.2% drop in GDP.
Likewise, many experts have already begun to speculate that although Russia is being heavily sanctioned by the West, they could use cryptocurrencies to evade them.
Let us remember that cryptocurrencies are a digital asset that uses cryptographic encryption to guarantee their ownership and ensure the integrity of transactions, and control the creation of additional units, that is, prevent someone from making copies, these currencies do not exist physically and stored in a digital wallet.
Russia May Leverage Cryptocurrencies to Evade Sanctions.
Given this scenario, Salman Banaei, co-director of Global Public Policy at the crypto analysis company Chainalysis, assured in an interview conducted by Business Insider that the Russian government can take advantage of cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions.
“As in the traditional financial system, Russia can take advantage of cryptocurrencies to evade the sanctions that are being applied in response to its invasion of Ukraine,” he asserted.
In this sense, he explains that the cryptocurrency ecosystem can “put in place” measures to identify the transactions of the sanctioned entities that have been identified.
Chainalysis detailed that Russia is a leading country in the adoption of cryptocurrencies, ranking 18th in the global index, as well as the most used cryptocurrencies in that country are 32% tether, 20% bitcoin, 15% bitcoin and ether.
That is why specialists assert that the existence of a digital ruble would help Russia to trade abroad.
The crypto market fell more than 10% after the Russian invasion
Like all economic markets in the world, the cryptocurrency market also fell due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On Thursday, February 24, Bitcoin fell to touch $34,459, its lowest value in a month, while widespread declines in the cryptocurrency market erased around $1.5 trillion from the market value in a matter of hours, a 9% decline in the value of all tokens in that market.
So it remains to be seen how Russia’s cryptocurrency reserves will be affected. The latest government document cited by Bloomberg Russians hold more than $22.9 billion in cryptocurrencies.
