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| gettyimagesbank |
By Yi Whan-woo
The country's cryptocurrency exchanges are joining international sanctions against Russia, amid speculation Moscow will exploit digital currencies to bypass the U.S.-led restrictions on its mainstream finance in punishment of its invasion of Ukraine.
According to industry sources, Friday, all top four digital currency exchanges ― Bithumb, Upbit, Coinone and Korbit ― have blocked Russian IP addresses in an effort to join global sanctions against Moscow.
The sources said the four can also turn down withdrawal requests if the transactions are found to be related to Russia.
On Wednesday, a smaller exchange, Gopax, froze some 20 accounts registered by Russian users and barred IP addresses from Russia.
The measures come amid calls on cryptocurrency exchanges to comply with the sanctions aimed at squeezing Russia's economy and severing it completely from the global financial system.
The sanctions have expelled Russian banks from SWIFT, the main global payments messaging system used by banks, but fallen short of preventing them from using digital coins as a backdoor to lessen the impact of sanctions.
Reuters reported that Binance, Kraken, Coinbase and other global cryptocurrency exchanges have stopped short of a blanket ban on Russian clients, despite pleas from the Ukrainian government for one.
They said they would screen users and block anyone targeted by sanctions.
Those exchanges argued that cutting off a whole nation would run counter to bitcoin's ethos of offering access to payments free of government oversight.
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