The Biden administration is urging cryptocurrency exchanges to disable Russian wallets, Bloomberg reports. After imposing harsh sanctions on the country, the government officials are afraid that Russian citizens might bypass them by using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
The US is not the first country, however, to plea for such actions, as the Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has taken to his Twitter account, saying: “I'm asking all major crypto exchanges to block addresses of Russian users.”
As the Russian Ruble has been in a freefall, Bitcoin managed to jump up and has now surpassed it in value, which many do not find coincidental. Apparently, Russians have started to turn to crypto after they got disconnected from SWIFT services.
There are voices that stress the neutrality of Bitcoin and would consider disabling the country’s wallets unbefitting of such status. However, as the whole world has unanimously condemned the Russian aggression towards Ukraine, from a moral standpoint, Bitcoin’s position in this matter is rather ambiguous.
#Binance is donating $10 million to help the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine🇺🇦
— Binance (@binance) February 27, 2022
Our focus is providing on-the-ground support through charity & collaboration.@BinanceBCF also launched the Ukraine Emergency Relief Fund to provide emergency relief through crypto crowdfunding.
The Bitcoin community across the globe seems to be on the side of Ukraine, though, as the country has received more than $37 million worth of BTC in donations so far. Even the exchanges themselves have shown their support, with Binance, for example, donating $10 million worth of BTC to the country.
