Topic: Russia can evade sanction through cryptocurrencies - page 4. (Read 1812 times)

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.

Cryptocurrencies are a drop in the ocean in terms of helping a country to overcome economic sanctions. You might seem curious but Russians aren't as sanctioned and limited as many think. Many countries buy products for Russia and deliver them, for example, Armenia buys 10000 Mercedes car, then Russia buys from Armenia and that's how Russia gets rid of sanctions. Also, as far as I know, many companies changed brand identity in Russia to bypass regulations and restrictions.
Sanctions are stupid to my mind, with or without cryptocurrencies, Russia can evade many of them. Btw cryptocurrency mining will be very cheap for Russia because electricity rates are very cheap and China is their neighbour.

I think many politicians are already well aware of cryptocurrencies and its implications if used. Some of them probably use it already but in secret and the decentralized nature of crypto plays largely to their advantage.
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or way for them to move around money outside of the traditional banking system which has them pretty cut off.
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They will only start acting once they find out that some people from the government other than them has started using crypto. They just don’t want to be one upped and any concern they will raise are just futile excuses.

That was a smart move by Putin and it's a smart move for most exchanges to do this too, I mean if it's against the Russian government, I don't think that they would easily comply to anti Russian matters with the ability of the Russian government to easily silence all the people that are against their rule and how they do thing and with it's army of Russian hackers that are constantly raiding different important places in the cyberspace, I think that it's for the best that they'll let things be with Russia evading sanctions through the use of cryptocurrencies, another thing that would make all of this ineffective and futile if there ever was the case that they do it is from the fact that Russia can just buy and sell stuff that they need through trading with countries that haven't complied with any sanctions against them, that's what they've been doing with all of the products that have a sanction against Russia, they buy it at an allied country and sell it for premium in the motherland.

Even if cryptocurrency were an ideal way to bypass international sanctions, it would not be enough to do so. Finance is only half the story. The second half is the movement of sanctioned goods. If you can try to hide the movement of cryptocurrency from international regulatory authorities, then it will not be possible to quietly move sanctioned goods regularly and in large volumes.

But in general, for Russia it is a constant search for new opportunities to circumvent sanctions, and for the United States and the West - a search for opportunities to stop them. It would be much easier for Russia to stop the aggression against Ukraine and thus stop the sanctions. Sanctions are gradually isolating Russia from international innovation and setting its development back decades. If the Kremlin has chosen this path, let them live with it.

Exactly. Who's to say government officials are using crypto to circumvent sanctions? I'd bet Putin and Russian oligarchs are already doing this. Of course, citizens will be prohibited from doing such a thing. It's what usually happens in authoritarian countries. I think China is in the same boat.

There's nothing the West can do to stop this, especially when crypto/Blockchain tech is decentralized. They'd need to shut down the whole Internet to make it happen. But you and I know that's impossible. Maybe crypto will become the main source of funding for Putin's "war machine" in the long run?

The uniqueness of today's Russia lies in the fact that there are written laws for citizens, but unwritten ones for the elite and Putin's entourage. Colossal amounts of money are now being spent on the war in Ukraine, and Putin, in order to remain in power, only has to increase spending on it. Therefore, they are forced to put pressure on businesses and ordinary citizens, and to prevent capital from leaving the country, to prohibit the full use of cryptocurrency.

At the same time, with the approval of Putin, cryptocurrency is clearly used there, including to circumvent sanctions and carry out various financial transactions, where this is, of course, possible. This forum has already discussed Russia's crypto-currency assistance to Hamas before their attack on Israel in October last year. Undoubtedly, there are many such examples.