Even though Ukraine’s vice prime minister asked cryptocurrency exchanges to block all Russian user accounts, the Russian users are likely to continue trading as normal.
Binance, one of the world’s large crypto exchange, says it has no plans to unilaterally freeze accounts, but will block the accounts of specific individuals who are subject to sanctions.
“Crypto is meant to provide greater financial freedom for people across the globe. To unilaterally decide to ban people’s access to their crypto would fly in the face of the reason why crypto exists.” They said.
Since Sunday, Mykhailo Fedorov, the vice prime minister of Ukraine, called for a blanket ban on Russian cryptocurrency trades via Twitter, saying, “It’s crucial to freeze not only the addresses linked to Russian and Belarusian politicians, but also to sabotage ordinary users.”
More and more crypto believers feel angry because it goes against the original intention of decentralization: “financial freedom”. Such as a user said on a Facebook group:
Binance wasn’t the only crypto exchange to reject a call for a total blackout of Russian traders. Kraken’s CEO also said understood the reasoning behind the request, but also declined, as well as Coinbase.
Punish the initiator of this war or keep the original purpose of decentralization, should we have to pick a side? Nevertheless, turning the gun to ordinary people is absolutely wrong, no matter during this war or on the blockchain.
