Russians and some Russian banks subject to sanctions can trade in digital currencies via the Huobi and KuCoin crypto exchanges. Data analyst Inca Digital, specialising in crypto coins, says this in a report.
According to director Adam Zarazinski, the exchanges may violate US and European sanctions.
Many Russians’ transactions concern the digital currency Tether, a so-called stablecoin. That is a digital currency that is linked to a real currency and therefore has a fixed value. “Russians widely use Tether to get money out of the country,” says Zarazinski. “These two crypto exchanges are using it to provide services to sanctioned Russian banks.”
But Inca says other exchanges also offer Russians many opportunities to trade, including major crypto exchange Binance. It offers Russians “multiple ways to convert rubles into crypto coins”. However, for amounts below $ 10,000, Binance does not check where the money comes from and whether the customer has obtained it reasonably.
In response, Binance is the first crypto exchange to comply with the anti-money laundering rules of the European Union. A spokesperson said Binance, which has no central headquarters, is doing more than is required of the company to ensure Russians do not use it to evade sanctions.
