According to Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, there isn’t a huge chance of Russian oligarchs using cryptocurrency to circumvent sanctions. Concerns that the Russian oligarchs would use cryptocurrency to dodge Western sanctions have prompted Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong to respond.
Armstrong said on Twitter early Friday that Coinbase is compelled by law to uphold the law and will ban all transactions coming from IP addresses that could be associated with sanctioned individuals. The exchange, on the other hand, would not preemptively prohibit all Russians from its platform unless the US elected to do so later, he said.
“That being said, we don’t believe there’s a huge chance of Russian oligarchs utilising crypto to dodge sanctions,” Armstrong said, noting that hiding large sums of money on open and public ledgers is much more difficult than hiding money in cash, art, gold, or other less traceable assets.
He went on to say that Coinbase wasn’t alone in its view, and that specialists from the US Treasury and the National Security Council concurred. He cited a Wednesday webinar in which NSC cybersecurity director Carole House said that “the scale that the Russian state would need to successfully circumvent all U.S. and partner’s financial sanctions would almost certainly render cryptocurrency as an ineffective primary tool for the state would almost certainly render cryptocurrency as an ineffective primary tool for the state.”
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