The battle for bitcoin: Ukraine is working to block crypto payments in Russia
26 December 2024 13:35
Ukraine is preparing a set of sanctions decisions aimed at blocking Russia’s ability to use cryptocurrencies for international payments. This was announced by the Advisor to the President of Ukraine, Commissioner for Sanctions Policy Vladyslav Vlasyuk, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
“Russia has officially started using bitcoin (and not only it) for cross-border payments. Why? Because many such payments are not allowed due to sanctions. Is this a surprise for us? No, we were the first to draw the attention of our partners to such plans of the enemy back in the summer,”
– Vlasyuk wrote on Facebook.
According to the advisor, the existing sanctions have significantly complicated Russia’s trade relations with key partners, including China and Turkey. Local banks are avoiding any transactions related to Russia for fear of falling under the watchful eye of Western regulators.
However, in response to international restrictions, Russia has already taken steps to legalize cryptocurrency mining and allowed its use in international trade. At the same time, Russia is one of the world leaders in bitcoin mining.
The Ukrainian side continues to work with international partners to increase sanctions pressure and block all possible ways to circumvent restrictions on the part of Russia, Vlasiuk said. According to him, anti-Russian decisions on cryptocurrencies will soon follow.
“Appropriate sanctions and other solutions to block the possibility of using unwanted cryptocurrency payments are already being prepared,”
– emphasized the Commissioner for Sanctions Policy.
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Bitcoin
Bitcoin is the world’s first and most popular cryptocurrency, which appeared in 2009. It was created by a person or a group of people under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, who remain anonymous to this day. Bitcoin is based on blockchain technology and has no centralized governing body.
Bitcoin is “mined” using a special mining technology, which is a digital analogy of mining physical minerals. Similarly to physical minerals, the number of Bitcoins is limited – there are only 21 million tokens in existence. So far, 19 million tokens have been mined, which is more than 90% of all “deposits”. Therefore, mining is becoming more and more difficult and expensive.
Bitcoin, like anything else in the world, can be exchanged for anything else, including traditional currencies. The value of Bitcoin shows the level of trust in it.
Bitcoin is considered a reliable and well-secured currency with a very high level of confidentiality. In the Bitcoin system, all information about transactions is open, but information about owners is completely anonymous. Therefore, Bitcoin, like some other cryptocurrencies, is popular among Ukrainian corrupt officials.
The use of Bitcoin in settlements with Russians is possible only with the consent of the other party to the transaction. Therefore, the sanctions may obviously be aimed at making settlements with Russians in Bitcoin undesirable.
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