After several sanctions, Russian cryptocurrency users are finding ways in the UAE to liquidate their cryptocurrencies.
According to a Reuters report, citing executives at the financial firm, billions of dollars worth of digital currencies are being liquidated by Russians.
Russians liquidatecryptocurrencies in UAE
While some use cryptocurrencies to invest in real estate in the UAE, others use companies there to convert the assets.
One of the executives told Reuters that a cryptocurrency company has received many inquiries in the last 10 days from Swiss brokers asking to settle billions of dollars in BTC. That’s because they fear Switzerland will freeze its assets.
“We have a guy – I don’t know who he is, but he came through a broker – and they’re like, ‘we want to sell 125,000 Bitcoins.’ And they said, ‘yes, let’s send it to a company in Australia,’” the executive said.
Furthermore, a realtor whose company has partnered with a cryptocurrency service said:
“We have seen a lot of Russians and even Belarusians coming to Dubai and bringing what they can, even in cryptocurrencies.”
Another source from the UAE confirmed to Reuters that the Russians were buying properties in Dubai using cryptocurrencies.
According to Apurv Trivedi of Healy Consultants, which advises cryptocurrency companies, the company is receiving even more interest from Russian clients.
“They are basically trying to hedge against the inflationary pressures that are happening against the Russian currency. So cryptocurrencies have been a very good outlet for them to manage the risks they are facing,” said Trivedi. “It’s a good liquidity provider for them.”
Sanctions on russia
Meanwhile, cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase have started blocking sanctioned Russian user addresses.
Coinbase, for example, blocked 25,000 accounts of users and companies that received some kind of sanction.
This week, European countries such as Germany and Estonia called for stricter oversight to close any loopholes that could allow cryptocurrency sanctions to be lifted.
Experts claim that it will not be simple for Russians to use cryptocurrencies to circumvent sanctions due to the transparency of blockchain technology.
Likewise, the US Treasury said that breaking sanctions using crypto was “not necessarily practicable.” Even so, he asked for surveillance of companies in the sector.
It is worth noting that the United Arab Emirates did not respond to the sanctions imposed by Western countries. In addition, its central bank has not issued any guidance on the measures.
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