Crypto exchanges have taken a softer stance towards the ordinary citizens of Russia.
World is closely monitoring as the Ukraine Russia conflict keeps everyone on toes.
Many Western countries have condemned Russia’s offensive and have imposed sanctions on it.
They are curtailing Russia’s access to many of their products and services to Russia.
Tech Companies on the Offensive Against Russia
Video streaming platform, YouTube has blocked Russian channels RT and Sputnik in Europe.
Short video platform, Tik Tok too restricted access to some Russian state-controlled media accounts in the European Union.
Social media giant Meta (Facebook) also took a similar action on Monday by blocking content published by RT and Sputnik in the European Union.
Twitter announced that it will be labelling the “Tweets that share links to Russian state-affiliated media websites.”
Netflix and Spotify too have taken a similar stance against Russia.
Well, these actions are aimed at restricting the information spread by the Russian Government on the grounds that it could be biased.
European Union has decreed that the broadcast of all state-run media outlets will be banned.
Crypto Exchanges Have a Softer Stance Towards Russia
Crypto exchanges have not taken such a harsh step towards banning the access to citizens and residents of Russia.
Binance is blocking the accounts of those on the sanctions list.
FTX is consulting with officials in the U.S. and Bahamas, where the firm is headquartered, on the proper course of action and plans to keep applying laws related to sanctioned countries.
Kraken has asked for legal requirements and grounds for banning Russia based clients.
Blockchain Transactions are Still in Reach
These are Centralized Exchanges (CEX). They can restrict access to their platforms but cannot stop anyone from transacting on a blockchain.
This is what was envisioned about Bitcoin.
Banks are crippled; financial institutions are wrecked; the central bank cannot completely control a currency during war. During this time a decentralized, trustless, and permissionless currency can provide a lifeline to people. A peer to peer currency is run by the people rather than a Central Bank.
Moreover, the war is between the armies and politicians. As a gesture of humanity, payment platforms are not restricting their Russian operations so as to not hurt common people.
Banning some operations of media outlets will not hurt common Russian citizens as much as crypto payments would.
Crypto Can Help Ordinary People During War
Russian Ruble is 30% down in a month, so its citizens are turning to crypto as a hedge against inflation.
Such is the effect on the market that Russians are reportedly buying BTC at a $20,000 premium on P2P exchanges.
When the war began BTC was trading at close to 34,000 USDT. Today it is trading for 44,000 USDT on Binance.
For instance, India’s exporters have about $500 million pending in Russia, as the latter has been removed from SWIFT.
Crypto transactions come to the rescue for all the payment and investment-related problems mentioned above. Considering the above factors, it can be held that crypto can prove to be a boon during a crisis.
It is testified by the real BTC trading volumes which surged to over $10 billion on February 24, the first day of the war, according to a report by Arcane Research. This is the highest real trading volume since December.
The term “real trading volume” refers to data sourced from exchanges that are believed to be reputable and free of wash trading activities. So, the crypto exchanges are right in their perspective as they are aiding Russian commonfolk.
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