Christina Quinn, Acting US Ambassador to Ukraine, joins Varney & Co. to discuss the possibility of accusing Vladimir Putin of war crimes and the destruction caused by his troops.
Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US, has suspended more than 25,000 accounts associated with Russian individuals or entities that it believes are engaged in illegal activities.
| Ticker | Security | past | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| COIN | COINBASE GLOBAL INC. | 161.99 | +0.85 | +0.53% |
Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said in a blog post on Monday that while most of the accounts were identified prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, their addresses were turned over to the government to further support sanctions enforcement. He added that the platform “has not seen a spike in sanctions evasion activity since the invasion.”
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During registration, Coinbase verifies account applications against regularly updated lists of sanctioned individuals and entities, including lists maintained by the US, the UK, the European Union, the United Nations, Singapore, Canada, and Japan.
To open a Coinbase account, individuals and businesses must provide identifying information, including their name and country of residence. The account information is then verified by a third party provider before the person or entity is allowed to transact. If a client resides in a sanctioned country or region, or if they are identified as a sanctioned individual or entity, they are prohibited from opening an account on the Coinbase platform.
Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US, has suspended more than 25,000 accounts associated with Russian individuals or entities that it believes are engaged in illegal activities. (Mateusz Słodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images)
Coinbase also uses geofencing controls to prevent access to its website, products, and services by anyone using an IP address in sanctioned geography such as Crimea, North Korea, Syria, and Iran.
“If someone has opened a Coinbase account and is subsequently sanctioned, we use this ongoing verification process to identify that account and close it,” Grewal noted. “Because sanctions evaders often try to hide their identity, Coinbase is also actively working to map transactions outside of organizations and individuals specifically flagged by governments. This allows us to identify potentially related parties and block accounts associated with prohibited entities.”
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According to Coinbase, digital assets can help prevent sanctions evasion by making their transactions public, persistent, and traceable. The platform adds that the adoption of digital assets is still in its infancy, making it unlikely that they will be used for widespread sanctions evasion.
“The Russian government and other entities under sanctions will require virtually inaccessible amounts of digital assets to effectively counter the current sanctions,” explains Grewal. “The Russian central bank alone owns more than $630 billion in mostly immobilized reserve assets. This is more than the total market capitalization of all but one digital asset and is 5 to 10 times the total daily trading volume of all digital assets.”
On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the White House is expected to release an executive order later this week that directs the Treasury, Commerce, State and Justice Departments, among other agencies, to conduct a broad review of the cryptocurrency market. A source familiar with the matter told the magazine that the agencies will have approximately three to six months to review and prepare a public report recommending the federal government’s approach to digital tokens.