We are talking about wallets that may be involved in “illegal activities”. Earlier Coinbase CEO promised that the site will not block access to Russians who are not under sanctions
American cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced that as part of the sanctions against Russia has blocked more than 25 thousand wallets associated with Russian citizens and companies.
The message of the exchange claims that they, allegedly, may be involved in “illegal activities”, so Coinbase blocks crypto wallets linked users. The platform handed over the data on them to the U.S. government. The exchange said it was committed to comply with sanctions.
Coinbase announced on March 4 that it had begun blocking the accounts of Russian citizens and companies subject to restrictive measures. The company’s CEO Brian Armstrong, however, assured that the measures will not affect those who are not on the sanctions lists. “Some ordinary Russians are using cryptocurrency as a lifeline now that their currency has collapsed,” he said.
However, Armstrong added that Coinbase would do so if the U.S. government demanded it.
Exchanges Binance and EXMO also promised not to block access for all Russian users, but only for those from the sanctions lists. At the same time, the cryptocurrency exchange Qmall reported that it had blocked the accounts of Russian and Belarusian residents and frozen their assets on its trading platform. Some other platforms have introduced similar measures.
The largest South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges Upbit, Bithumb and Korbit decided to close access to their trading platforms for Russians.
