Check out the list here
The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control has just slapped sanctions on some Russian fintech companies, including crypto services like Netex24 and Bitpapa.
This move is part of the latest sanctions from the Treasury Department.
But honestly, calling Netex24 and Bitpapa exchanges feels off. They’re more like platforms with some P2P trading options. There are tons of similar services in Russia. If you wanna see them all, the full list is available on this site.
Some of these platforms shut down, then pop back up under a different name a week later.
Well these are small things. US wouldn't allow Russian exchanges and vice versa. That's normal!
These Russian exchanges are mainly active in Russian mainland. Most of their customer base is also from Russia. Not sure why US took the pain to impose sanctions against of foreign local exchange. I don't think that these exchange is will be impacted at all.
Like you rightly pointed out, when one is closed another one pops in with the different name.
This is just my theory but these exchanges do deserve that sanction because they're used by the Russian government to secretly and discretely get fund their war with Ukraine, with all the sanctions that they've got, it's not far off to think that they're going to cheat and find a way to circumvent the sanctions that are imposed to them and what better way to support an ally by secretly funding them, that's how I see these things with these Russian exchanges, I mean they'd be not putting in the effort of creating another version when the other exchange shuts down right? Man, Russia really got a large war chest and influence to be able to do this kind of thing, they really want Ukraine.
The Russian government uses rubles, and I am 99.9999% sure that these exchangers are in no way connected with the Russian government, because these are not the largest or most famous exchangers.
Despite all the sanctions, Russian gas reaches Europe through the territory of Ukraine. Do you need proofs of this or will you find it yourself?
Even if they have rubles, that doesn't mean that they don't have any use for USD, I'm sure that other countries would be willing to get those USD from them in exchange for goods and services, remember that there's countries that haven't complied with the sanctions against Russia and they will only accept USD to give the Russians what they want in terms of export and import, Russia is still doing international trades so it's not that difficult to believe that they're using those USD from these exchanges for the purpose of keeping an economy on the international market.
I couldn't find anything on the recent custody of law enforcement agents have raided a few Russia based exchanges so I post the translation here. According to Russian crypto-news portal Bits.media:
"Search warrants were given to several trading platforms in Moscow. Russian article is here. One of the exchanges had placed an announcement about "technical survey"on their web-site."
Not much is known on the consequences but this header is repeated by several media outlets. As far as I can see crypto crowd didn't react on this custody occurrence. Any thoughts?
Despite all the sanctions, Russia is a major global supplier of raw materials, agricultural products, and so on.
Of course Russia will use dollars and euros and other currencies, but I am telling you that the government does not use these exchangers.
You need to be able to read and understand this news properly, and for that you need to understand what is going on in the Russian crypto community. There are hundreds of such exchangers with offices in Moscow City, and there are still a large number of companies there that are involved in training, investing, arbitrage and other cryptocurrency-related matters. Very often there are frauds, deceptions and that's why police officers go to Moscow City every day as a job. Such news can be published every week
Three months ago, Bitpapa was the largest platform for exchanging bitcoins for rubles. At least, based on my experience, it was possible to find a counterparty for such exchange on Bitpapa faster than on any other platform, and make the exchange at the best rate. But now the leadership in BTCRUB exchanges has been intercepted by the p2p market on the t.me/wallet platform. And OFAC did not include it in its list. Perhaps OFAC simply acts with a delay, and its latest decision does not take into account the growth of t.me/wallet which became a more popular platform than Bitpapa.
Bitcoin addresses were not included in this list, but only the names of individuals and entities. For individuals, they will most likely not leave Russia, and for entities, new companies will be created. Therefore, I do not think that this is a problem as long as the United States is the one who decides such regulations, and any party can be included in them, regardless of whether they support money laundering or not complying with what these parties want.
Russia or any other country can create such lists, but due to the influence of the United States on banking systems, the OFAC list is the most influential.
Where did you get the information that Bitpapa is the largest platform for exchanging bitcoins for rubles? I can agree that Bitpapa spends a lot of money on advertising and this platform is known in Russia, but I have not used it. Such platforms have the same end, because p2p exchanges end in a large number of scams, and the police are forced to respond when victims write a lot of reports.
I have already mentioned that is is based on my personal experience. If I need to exchange bitcoins to rubles or vice versa, I usually post offers on Bitpapa, t.me/wallet, LocalCoinSwap, HodlHodl, RoboSats, and LNP2PBOT. Bitpapa used to be the place where, in most cases, I could sooner find a counterparty for such a deal, even if I offered an exchange rate there which was as attractive as the rates I offered on other platforms.
There are 2 types of users on p2p exchangers.
The bank has already blocked bank cards for some users for suspicious financial transactions, but not yet for other users
But Netex24 is really just a simple exchanger, like hundreds of other exchangers listed in Bestchange. Probably, the only difference betwee Netex24 and other exchangers is that Netex24 tried to conduct legal business via a legal entity in Russia. OFAC might find the only lrgal entity among hundreds of exchangers and include it in their SDN list. All other exchanger act anonymously, and it's impossible to impose sanctions against them.
Placing sanctions on these exchanges, really does not do much, as they will just close and start again within 1 week or less.
It will require them to mix and wash their coins though, and they won't be able to do business with certain companies, but I think the existence of these exchanges it to serve a shady corner of the market, and therefore it doesn't really matter.
For those that don't know, big KYC exchanges (e.g. Binance, Coinbase, etc) will use blockchain analytics tracking software like Chainalysis or TRM Labs to do analysis on the source of cryptocurrency for users that make deposits or other transactions. They will look for links to suspicious russian OTC exchanges, or OFAC sanctioned addresses, etc and hold/freeze the coins if they suspect anything.
All large exchanges have a legal entity in Russia, but this is done in order to show at least some documents when there is an inspection, in order to avoid criminal liability for illegal entrepreneurship. It is illegal to work without opening a legal entity. But exchangers do not publish their legal data on the website.. And the whole exchange process is the same as it was 5 years ago.
It seems that the United States will never run out of ideas and will continue to look for ways to get Russia to end all their war actions against Ukraine, I'm willing to bet that whatever laws and sanctions the US imposed on Russia were only to help Ukraine end the war.
As in several cases that have occurred.
Not only have they (OFAC) sanctioned blockchain services, the US Treasury has also acted against several crypto exchanges operating in Russia as you mentioned, They will also impose sanctions on Russian-based crypto mining companies, everything the US is doing is just to limit the Russian economy, but I see that whatever sanctions are imposed on Russia, they don't seem to be affected, in fact they themselves are in disarray.
My understanding is that whatever the US (OFAC) does or sanctions against Russia, it's the same as a bear vs. bear fight. bears, who become victims of what is around them.
They are sanctioning the Russian exchanges but how is this going to do anything? Crypto is unstoppable. Russian exchanges must be laughing their assess off right now. None of their customers are USA citizens probably too, so what's the point here? Do they think these exchanges will go away just because they are getting sanctioned? Russian gas was sanctioned too but EU is still using Russian gas. :/ This is absurd.
Most sanctions exist only on paper, but they do not work.
The United States is the very first beneficiary of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Thanks to this, most high-tech companies from Europe are moving to the United States, because cheap prices for energy, raw materials and minerals have ended in Europe.
I think it's a matter of the procedure itself.
If it is proven that these exchanges and their founders violated US laws, this entire huge system with branches in all countries could persecute the founders of the exchanges for life.