Real-world statistics and expert opinion seem to be at odds with European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, who described cryptocurrencies as a “threat” to global security. Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, has reaffirmed her concerns that Russian people and companies are using cryptocurrency to circumvent sanctions.
According to Chainalysis, daily crypto trading in rubles was just $7.4 million as of March 18, down more than 50% from previous statistics and a record of $70 million on March 7. With Bitcoin’s daily volume varying between $20 billion and $40 billion, this number represents a minuscule fraction of the overall worldwide cryptocurrency market volume. According to Christine Lagarde, a crypto skeptic who spoke at the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Summit on Tuesday, European financial authorities have stated that “volumes of rubles into stable, into crypto trading in rubles, at the moment are at the highest level that we have seen since maybe 2021.”
No blame was placed on the Russian government, and Lagarde said that primarily Russian people and enterprises were resorting to Trading crypto in the ruble. She did, however, acknowledge that cryptocurrency trading “is unquestionably being utilized as a means of attempting to avoid the sanctions.”
“Does crypto trading in rubles poses a threat?” says the author. Has it ever posed a danger to you in the past? Yes. When you look at a lot of the questionable transactions that are going place, a lot of the criminal activity payments taking place, you’ll see that there are a lot of crypto trading assets involved.”
Lagarde’s views seem to be at variance with the statistics supplied by Chainalysis and Kaiko and with a professional opinion on the subject. The Blockchain Association’s Jake Chervinsky has said that Russia is unlikely to use cryptocurrency trading assets to bypass Western sanctions soon.
According to data given by crypto trading in rubles monitoring company Kaiko, the ruble to Tether (USDT) transactions has decreased by 86 percent from a high of $38 million on March 7 to a low of less than $5 million on March 22. A rise in volumes occurred before the conflict and a subsequent increase, although volumes have since returned to levels lower than those recorded during much of early February. That was before the imposition of penalties.
In contrast, bitcoin is being used to assist Ukrainian migrants in their attempts to flee the nation. CNBC reported on the plight of a Ukrainian refugee who went by the alias “Fadey” and escaped the war-torn country with $2000 in Bitcoin stored in a cold wallet, making it significantly more straightforward for him to retrieve his monetary assets after he found safety in Poland.
Alex Gladstein, the Human Rights Foundation’s chief strategy officer, stated that trying to withdraw money from Ukrainian banks in the weeks leading up to the invasion was extremely difficult. This highlighted the difficulties refugees are currently experiencing when attempting to access their funds from countries such as Poland.
I’m wondering how you plan on getting access to your Ukrainian bank account in Poland. “Best of luck.”
As a result of the recent surge in crypto trading contributions to Ukraine, according to statistics from Merkel Science, the total amount of daily donations to Ukraine has risen to $100.9 million, representing a tenfold increase over the previous three months.
