If someone does not have a complete picture of the information, he may think that cryptocurrency exchanges prefer Russia for some reason – Russia, which is currently isolated by the largest brands, which, for example, recently banned Facebook.

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Companies withdraw products and services from Russia, in addition to closing branches, often have to lay off workers. However, the two largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Coinbase and Binance, are still operating in Russia and refuse to impose a blanket ban on all Russian users.

At the moment, exchanges are rejecting a call to ban trading with all Russian users. They explain that in this way they can punish innocent users and have absolutely nothing to do with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“We believe that everyone deserves access to basic financial services, unless otherwise required by law,” said Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase. So, if the exchange is legally forced to ban Russia, it will. Until then, it will serve all users. “We will not unilaterally freeze the accounts of millions of innocent users,” Armstrong added.

European lawmakers say the exchanges should block access because they would otherwise help the oligarchs and other sanctioned Putin supporters launder money. They believe that cryptocurrencies reduce the impact of other sanctions.

Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, tweeted: “Fact: There are about 350 banks in Russia. There are only ten banks on the sanctions list, and they are all focused on cryptocurrency anyway.” This is unfortunately true. The media often fails to verify the information correctly, which is lost by the fact that most banks in Russia are still operating.

See: Sputnik News

However, it is worth noting that cryptocurrencies serve both Russia and Ukraine. When it comes to finances, there is no such thing as a neutral and “free” metric as decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Cryptocurrency exchanges do not have the power to impose penalties

Sanctions decisions are made at the highest levels of government, with the support of legislators, law enforcement and even the military. Stock exchanges emphasize that they should not decide to freeze a certain group of financial resources. For example, there is no shortage of Russians in London or New York – in the event that the head of a bank in London is allowed to freeze the assets of an ordinary person who has nothing to do with the war and Putin, but was born only in Russia? on what basis? “We understand and must comply with international sanctions set by the respective governments. But we will not create our own,” the Binance blog said.

Even if we ban cryptocurrency – it will do nothing

The Binance platform also highlights something else – the fact that the cryptocurrency market is still in its early stages of development. This means that few people still use or know what cryptocurrencies are.

Thus, approximately 3% of the world’s population today has some kind of exposure to cryptocurrencies (i.e. have some cryptocurrency). Of these, most own only a small percentage of their net worth in cryptocurrencies – less than 10% on average. According to Binance, the global cryptocurrency net worth is very likely to be only 0.3%. So, instead of focusing on the banks holding 99.7% of the funds, the media and politicians focused on the 0.3% for a while, putting pressure on them and putting cryptocurrencies in a bad light. Unfortunately, the truth is that politicians realize that they cannot control cryptocurrencies, so they are using the current situation to ban them and assert that they are “harmful” or “war financing.” Let’s be careful with this information because it is incorrect.