Topic: Russia can evade sanction through cryptocurrencies (Read 992 times)

USDT is a stable and centralized currency, every transaction will be tracked, especially large transactions. Meanwhile, both are close allies, meaning both central banks can communicate and connect easily with each other. Do you think they will use USDT while they can use the currency of 1 of 2 countries to trade? I don't think they are stupid enough to use centralized cryptocurrency like USDT for their transactions to avoid sanctions. Using USDT is even more dangerous than using USD because their cryptocurrency transactions can be frozen at any time if the US requests Tether to do so.

I don't know what basis you base your claim that China and Russia are using cryptocurrencies for their transactions, but according to my understanding, they don't need cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, XRM... let alone centralized stablecoins.

i doubt their government uses the USDT, it would mean a large amount of sending USDT. if it's a known address, those USDT can be frozen. and they find it not in their best interest, remember they are dedollarizing. but the citizens i think in China and Russia could still be using stablecoins including the USDT.

the government of Russia and China do have their own version of SWIFT, they may be using them already if not their CBDC.

Russia and China are using crypto, including USDT for transactions with one another. This way they avoid sanctions and make payments much faster and more unnoticeably to the outside world.On the official agenda, they may be against cryptocurrencies, but this does not mean that they do not use them for personal gain.

I'm merely making a point that Bitcoin's Proof Of Work is a mechanism for burning something physical, such as Russian Oil, to produce something digital - An asset that's censorship-resistant, which is absolutely useful for a sanctioned country. Russia, Iran, Venezuela are countries that should mine Bitcoin with their Oil outputs.


Ethereum is Proof Of Stake.


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they still can sell their oil to different countries though. particularly to India which countries from the West are buying from India. making Inida the middleman. they are earning money through the oil and gas coming from Russia. Russia's economy isn't as bad as the rest of the world.

they might not need BTC anymore but if they are going to be mining, they'd probably trust developers that are from Russia such as Vitalik. which means mining ETH will make sense for them as well besides BTC.

But Russia should probably start using some of their Oil output to fuel industrial mining farms and mine Bitcoin. If they can't export and/or smuggle it all, then they should find more "experimental" ways to "export" them. The censorship-resistant path is through Proof Of Work through Bitcoin.

China is also a country that is not friendly to cryptocurrencies, but they are a strategic partner and ally of Russia. So I don't think Russia is using crypto to avoid sanctions and Western countries are being aggressive with crypto because of Russia.

Basically, so far the US and its allies have launched the 14th sanctions package on the Russian economy and will not stop. But that shows they have failed to punish Russia 13 times before. Politics is something very big, complex and dark, it goes beyond what we see and what we think. So I guess Russia has hundreds of ways to survive without cryptocurrency like we think.

Of course. They can use some sort of "proxy" that would deliver the weapons for them. Or they can just produce chips and weapons in-house to avoid sanctions. We all know the West's efforts to cripple Russia's war machine aren't working. They've only managed to slow down Russia. Not stop it.

I think the main reason why the West (particularly, the US) have been aggressive towards crypto is because they believe Russia (and other sanctioned countries) are using it to circumvent sanctions. They will increase regulations, making it difficult for Russia to buy/sell crypto. That won't stop DEXs or P2P trading platforms, though. But at least, it's a workaround. Hopefully, Russia gets back on the World Stage by cooperating with the West. Everybody wants peace, right?

Natural gas flowed from Russia to European countries in large part through Ukrainian pipelines and through the territory of Ukraine. Such gas is still delivered to the EU in limited volumes, since some EU countries need some time to completely abandon Russian gas. The treaty, which was concluded between Russia and Ukraine even before the full-scale attack on Ukraine, expires this year 2024. Ukraine continues to fulfill the terms of the agreement on the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine in order to avoid possible lawsuits and not lose the image of a reliable partner. But the Ukrainian authorities have already made a statement several times that after the expiration of the agreement on the transit of Russian gas on December 31, 2024, they do not intend to extend its validity. Therefore, the situation with Russian gas supplies is changing and will continue to change. The main thing is that EU countries are looking for ways to completely abandon Russian gas, and this time will come anyway.

Exactly.

Another thing is, the west are sanctioning many countries that have lots of natural energy/metal reserves but in the end they are effectively sanctioning themselves.

So when Russia has lots of natural gas and oil but the west doesn’t want to buy from them, Russia sells their gas to China and India. Then the West pays India more money to buy the same Russian gas.

Russia makes money, India makes money, guess who is getting robbed… The European tax payers.

You have spoken well here. I found it so annoying when I saw how cryptocurrencies are being used to torment citizens in a country which affects the country in general. This was not the reason why this technology came into existence and I think the government is abusing it with all the regulations and sanctions to users. The idea was not to control people with cryptocurrencies sanction it was to create a new financial system that would be faster and as well ease the stress of the traditional financial system. Now it is something that the government uses to fight the citizens.

This perception that cryptocurrency can be a way for countries to evade sanctions, organizations and individuals to launder drug money and terrorism is what is making people to have biased opinions about crypto in general. It looks as if cryptocurrencies are being created for the wrong reasons, meanwhile a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, was created for privacy and freedom from any centralized third party. I don't know how far, any country can evade sanctions through cryptocurrency, but all I know is that it's not meant for any negative purposes.

As for the Ukraine, vice prime minister demanding exchanges to freeze all Russian accounts will not make any meaning, so far the exchanges are not affiliated to Ukraine.

I didn't mean your example but that's true and I don't see any point in that. They sanction Russia but then buy from the middleman which results in significantly expensive prices and problematic delivery. You have a pipeline with Russia, just get gas through it, what's the point of a middleman buying it for you from Russia, and then delivering it to you? I don't know. It's not a boycott, it's something else.
My country for example, took the advantage of this situation and many rich Russian people flew here, started businesses, are paying enormously high money in rent, our local currency became very stable because of the dollars that they bought with them when they came here. I know that long-term, it will be devastating because Russians are massively buying houses, getting citizenship, investing money in businesses and acquiring them. Soon we will be the work class and they'll be business owners and landlords here.
This war is not doing any good to anyone.

And they can even lie and say negative things to crypto only for the public to not suspect them. Well, they are wrong with that but that action alone can make them untrustworthy already.

Also, if they want to hide their shady deeds, then they better use a more private crypto like Monero, Zcash, and Dashcoin because BTC is still transparent and someone who use it can still possibly be traced by viewing their transactions in the Blockchain. If ever they found other crypto users that are also from the government, I don't think they will react negatively because that was their bro's and sis. They will even became friends and will talk about their future plans with it.

Technical progress has already advanced so far that no specific country can no longer produce on its territory all the goods that it needs. This is especially true for states with a small territory. Therefore, thanks to the market economy and the development of ties between states, a kind of cooperation occurs between states, depending on their availability of natural resources, geographic location, degree of industrial development and a number of other factors.

But under the conditions of rather harsh sanctions that violate this actual division of labor, Russia has virtually no chance of development, especially in the field of advanced technologies, against which the sanctions are mainly directed. Russia is already doomed to technologically lag behind most developed countries, because sanctions will not be lifted in the short and even medium term, because the damage to Ukraine has been significant and the lifting of sanctions will most likely be made dependent on the degree of compensation for the damage caused, and Russia’s high ambition will not allow the Kremlin to agree on the proposed conditions for lifting sanctions.

Cryptocurrency also cannot save Russia in the current situation. The main buyers of its oil and gas, China and India, have a rather negative attitude towards cryptocurrency. In general, states are not interested in using cryptocurrency in international trade, primarily because they cannot control it, as well as because of the unpredictability and high price volatility of this market.

I also hear that they go over it by using third nations instead. So Russia sells something to X nation, then X nation sells that to Germany, that way Germany still buys from Russia, the only difference is that X nation makes money in the middle instead. Makes things more expensive for Germany to buy, and makes things cheaper for Russia to sell, because that difference will go to X nation instead.

However, that still doesn't mean that sanctions work, it just doesn't work for either, not for Europe, not for Russia, both are still dealing with each other. When you combine all the ways sanctions are broken there isn't really all that much that still stays unused, it is trading and all nations are dealing with each other aside from maybe a few products.

Why can't they just produce their own items? It's far better than having to depend on another country for supplies, goods, etc. By pegging the value of cryptocurrencies to oil, Russia would be able to carry on as usual with sanctions in play. It's likely government officials are doing it in secret. Who knows? Even China could be doing it (despite banning Bitcoin in public). You can't stop decentralization.

Imagine what would happen if countries started ditching Fiat currencies in favor of crypto. The global order will change in ways we couldn't imagine. Let's hope there would be peace among all sides (Russia & Ukraine) soon. Nobody likes wars, right?

Well given the fact that sanctions can hurt the economy of a specific country I think it is wise to use cryptocurrency to evade such action from the west and it's allies. I think this is also the reason why there is worldwide adoption of Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies due to that issue and no one wants restriction in times of war or crisis as money is very important in acquiring new military  hardwares and other stuff to add strength and as multipliers to keep em going. Therefore cryptocurrency itself plays an important role in every situation especially in times of sanctions, crisis, inflation and more.

Banning crypto in a country is the same as banning a gust of wind. The wind will blow in the direction he wants. Maybe crypto exchanges could ban accounts from Russia. But Russia could also create its own crypto exchange by allowing crypto accounts from all over the country. Automatically the transaction will run smoothly. I think it is illogical to prohibit such a ban. It's the same as blocking fast water.

Regarding what sanctions help Russia with cryptocurrencies. Of course there are many. Transactions with any country are not detected via crypto channels. Even Russia can carry out transactions with NATO member countries. It is not impossible for NATO members to be good friends with Russia.

It is not about sanctioning your money but it is the identity attached to that money.  So when they sanction or prohibit russian governments then they will mark the people and not just their bank accounts.  So they will be prohibited to use any accounts with their name on it.