TL; DR Breakdown
- Currency.com halts activities in Russia
- The exchange cited violence in Ukraine as a factor
- Investments continue to mete out sanctions against Russia
In the last few months, there have been tensions across the European community regarding the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces. Despite calls for Russia to stand down, pleas have been met with deaf ears. However, there have been a lot of sanctions across the Europe community and the world on Russia to frustrate their actions. In the latest push against their activities and the growing signs of sanction evasion, Currency.com has announced a suspension of services to Russia-based clients.
Currency.com cites violence in Ukraine
Citing its reason for taking action at this stage, the crypto exchange mentioned the continued violence meted out against Ukraine despite calls for withdrawal. In the firm’s announcement this morning, it said its services would no longer be available to users based in Russia henceforth. The firm also mentioned that new users to sign up for an account will no longer be afforded that privilege.
Currency.com has its home office in Gibraltar, with further branches spread across London and Kyiv. However, the most surprising of all is its branch office located in Belarus after earning a license. In a statement by one of the top executives of Currency.com, the company does not associate with the violence being carried out in Ukraine. The executive mentioned that the violence had seen people displaced from their homes with others losing their lives and investments.
Investments levy sanctions on Russia
The company executive also mentioned that one of the reasons Currency.com took this approach was the continued bloodshed in the European country. Unlike Currency.com, there have been few actions on Russia involving known crypto exchanges. This is despite calls from the crypto community at large for them to levy sanctions on the erring country. For example, Binance has refused to carry out any sanction citing that it will not just freeze accounts belonging to innocent traders.
Binance knows that if it goes ahead with the sanctions, innocent traders could be caught in the crossfire. Another exchange is Kraken, where the CEO has played down the likelihood of a sanction on authorities’ directives. However, there have been investments that have put paid or suspended their services in Russia for the time being.
For example, the card payment company Mastercard announced back in February that operations in the country would be halted for the time being. In the same vein, crypto exchanges have been coming in handy to aid Ukraine in its quest to gather enough funds to fend off the enemy. Presently, the country has raised around $60 million using different exchanges.
