Crypto outside the block – Newspaper Kommersant No. 230 (7431) dated 12/12/2022
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According to Kommersant, the number of offers of services for the release of assets of Russian investors blocked on foreign crypto exchanges is growing on the darknet. This is possible, for example, by withdrawing funds to an unblocked account, reissuing accounts with resetting the KYC condition, etc. But services can be expensive, at 35-85% of the value of assets, and often turn out to be fraud. Experts believe that in such conditions it is time to start developing Russian crypto exchanges.
Experts interviewed by Kommersant talk about the appearance on the darknet of proposals to release the funds of blocked accounts on foreign crypto exchanges. In the announcements that Kommersant has read, it is proposed to withdraw funds from Binance, Kraken, Huobi, KuCoin. The commission starts from 35% of the withdrawn amount and goes up to 85%. But, Angelina Sevostyanova, a corporate practice lawyer at Key Consulting Group, warns that the number of scammers “who offer “crypto cheese” to restore user accounts for a percentage” is also growing.
In October, the European Union tightened sanctions against Russia in terms of cryptocurrencies (see Kommersant-Online, October 6). Companies with a European license were banned from opening accounts and crypto wallets for Russians. Prior to that, there was a limit on the amount of assets – € 10 thousand. Access to the Russians was closed by the BitMEX, Bitstamp, WhiteBIT, Gemini exchanges. Some exchanges, such as Binance, Coinbase and Kraken, have partially restricted the transactions of users from Russia. According to the chief analyst of RegBlok Anna Avakimyan, accounts of 10–20 thousand Russians in the amount of 2–3 billion rubles have been blocked on crypto exchanges.
A Kommersant source in a large IT company explained that on some exchanges, blocked accounts have interaction options – for example, transferring assets to another exchange participant that has no restrictions. “And he is already transferring to the required bank card from his funds not related to the exchange, that is, there is some kind of offset, only with a commission,” the interlocutor of Kommersant explained.
Proposals related to unlocking accounts can come from people who have connections with the security service of exchanges, or simply developed simple and effective mechanisms for resetting KYC (the “know your customer” requirement) for accounts with a new passage to new documents, the head of InDeFi believes. Smart Bank Sergey Mendeleev. “In principle, in most cases, it is enough for Russians to provide evidence of foreign residence in order to get an unlock, for example, to provide any certificate of permanent residence abroad, a utility bill is enough, which is “drawn” in five minutes,” he believes. “This can be done through communication with the support services of the exchanges by determining the information about the conditions, and then through the adaptation of accounts. Users are already registering accounts using a VPN, purchasing ready-made accounts on the darknet,” points out Angelina Sevostyanova.
However, restrictions on crypto exchanges arise not only because of sanctions. The blocking may be related to the origin of the funds, that is, the failure to comply with the AML procedure (Anti-Money Laundering, measures against money laundering), Dmitry Machikhin, founder of BitOK, explained. “In this case, the exchange is authorized to freeze money until the documents are provided, this exchange is obliged to report such an operation to the police or Interpol, this is handled by the internal compliance department of the exchange,” he specified.
Not all crypto-exchanges supported the sanctions restrictions, which is largely due to the reluctance to lose the promising Russian market, says Oleg Ogienko, BitRiver’s director for government relations. However, the risk of blocking the cryptocurrency assets of Russians on foreign platforms will continue to grow with the introduction of new packages of sanctions from Western and countries that have joined them, he emphasizes.
Therefore, according to Mr. Ogienko, Russians should turn to non-custodial services to save their funds. In addition, the expert believes, it is important to start forming Russian platforms for storing and buying and selling cryptocurrencies in order to “stimulate the development of foreign economic activity and the Russian financial market as a whole.”
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