Global regulators monitor crypto use in Ukraine war

Please fol­low and like us:
Pin Share

Illu­mi­na­tion of the stock graph is seen on the rep­re­sen­ta­tions of vir­tu­al cur­ren­cy Bit­coin in this pic­ture illus­tra­tion tak­en tak­en March 13, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Reg­is­ter

LONDON, March 21 (Reuters) — Glob­al finan­cial reg­u­la­tors are close­ly scru­ti­n­is­ing the use of cryp­toas­sets dur­ing the war in Ukraine after con­cerns they could be used to evade West­ern sanc­tions on Russia.

The $1.8 tril­lion cryp­to sec­tor is on the defen­sive amid warn­ings from U.S. and Euro­pean law­mak­ers that dig­i­tal asset com­pa­nies are not up to the task of com­ply­ing with West­ern finan­cial sanc­tions imposed on Rus­sia fol­low­ing the coun­try’s inva­sion of Ukraine. read more 

Some cryp­to exchanges have reject­ed calls to cut off all Russ­ian users, rais­ing con­cerns that cryp­to could be used as a way to cir­cum­vent sanctions.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Reg­is­ter

Ukraine has also raised more than $100 mil­lion in cryp­tocur­ren­cies after post­ing appeals on social media for dona­tions for mil­i­tary and human­i­tar­i­an needs in bit­coin and oth­er dig­i­tal tokens.

“We at the FSB are mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion, the con­flict sit­u­a­tion rel­a­tive to cryp­tos,” Patrick Arm­strong, a mem­ber of the Finan­cial Sta­bil­i­ty Board­’s (FSB) sec­re­tari­at, told a City & Finan­cial con­fer­ence in London.

The FSB, which groups finan­cial reg­u­la­tors, cen­tral banks and finance min­istry offi­cials from the Group of 20 economies, is shar­ing the infor­ma­tion it obtains among its mem­bers, Arm­strong said.

The Euro­pean Union on March 9 issued guid­ance to con­firm that sanc­tions on loans and cred­it to Rus­sia include cryp­toas­sets, in a bid to close poten­tial sanc­tions loopholes.

John Glen, Britain’s finan­cial ser­vices min­is­ter, told the same con­fer­ence that steps already tak­en by the UK to bring cryp­toas­sets under anti-mon­ey laun­der­ing and ter­ror­ist financ­ing curbs will sup­port law enforce­ment in cryptoassets.

“We think that these steps will active­ly sup­port the gov­ern­men­t’s response to Rus­si­a’s inva­sion of Ukraine,” Glen said.

But David Raw, a pol­i­cy offi­cial at Britain’s Finan­cial Con­duct Author­i­ty, said 90% of cryp­to firms seek­ing approval for anti-mon­ey laun­der­ing con­trols have either with­drawn their appli­ca­tions or been refused because they could not meet the standards.

All com­pa­nies car­ry­ing out cryp­to-relat­ed activ­i­ty in the UK face an end of March dead­line for obtain­ing approvals and Raw sought to reas­sure those still stuck in the autho­ri­sa­tion queue.

“It won’t be the case that you sud­den­ly have to cease trad­ing,” Raw said.

Britain is also crack­ing down on cryp­to pro­mo­tions and Glen said the UK gov­ern­ment is still con­sid­er­ing whether oth­er rules are need­ed for blockchain, which under­pins cryp­to assets.

“We are not fin­ished in rela­tion to cryp­to,” Raw said.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Reg­is­ter

Report­ing by Huw Jones, edit­ing by Ed Osmond and Susan Fenton

Our Stan­dards: The Thom­son Reuters Trust Principles.

Source link

Please fol­low and like us:
Pin Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *