Mykhailo Fedorov has urged crypto exchanges to ban both Russian and Belarussian users’ accounts. He made this request on Twitter on February 27, after many days of fierce combat in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion of the nation late last week.
I'm asking all major crypto exchanges to block addresses of Russian users.
It's crucial to freeze not only the addresses linked to Russian and Belarusian politicians, but also to sabotage ordinary users.
— Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) February 27, 2022
Jesse Powell, CEO of Kraken, one of the world’s largest exchanges, stated that such a move could not be made “without a legal necessity to do so,” although he added that such an order “may be coming soon.”
In a subsequent tweet, Fedorov also applauded NFT platform DMarket for freezing accounts belonging to consumers in Russia and Belarus.
Received breaking news. @dmarket, a platform for trading NFT & In-game Metaverse items, decided to freeze the accounts of users from the Russian Federation and Belarus. Funds from these accounts could be donated to the war effort. Nowadays Robin Hoods. Bravo.
— Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) February 27, 2022
Fedorov’s request comes only days after the United States and the European Union announced a combined decision to exclude some Russian banks from SWIFT, the international payments messaging system, as well as to freeze Russia’s foreign assets.
The Ukrainian government has received millions of dollars in bitcoin, ether, and USDT since its official Twitter account issued a call for help on February 26.
