Cryptocurrency firms based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been inundated with requests from Russian clients to liquidate billions of dollars’ worth of digital assets. Over the past several days, one crypto executive claims to have received several requests from Swiss brokers to liquidate billions of bitcoin (BTC), none of which was for less than $2 billion.
Other Russians are considering using their cryptocurrency to invest in real estate in the UAE, according to the report. Of course, Russians have always been popular tourists in Dubai, and they were among the top tourists and real estate buyers there long before the invasion of Ukraine.
Many Bitcoin veterans, who have seen similar allegations before, are taking the Reuters news with a grain of salt. Blockstream’s Adam Back tweets, “Calling a hard fake on this one.” “This somewhat seems like the 2018-2019 torrent of emails to OTC markets about whales wanting to sell 10-100k slugs of BTC,” says Meltom Demirors of Coinshares. When the ticket is printed, I’ll believe it. FUD until then. “
For its part, the UAE has previously stated that it is not aligned with either Western allies or Moscow. Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s presidential adviser, said late last month that the Gulf state “believes that taking sides would only lead to more violence” and that the UAE’s goal is to “urge all parties to resort to diplomatic action.”
Will UAE crypto firms fulfil the wishes of Russians? Let us see.
Related: Dubai announces regulatory and licensing authority for crypto
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