South Korean Exchanges Join List Of Platform That Block Russian Users

The South Korean exchanges join the list of platforms that astarted blocking Russian users and some of them include, Bithumb, Korbit, Gopax, and Upbit so let’s find out more today in our latest crypto news.

Some of the leading South Korean exchanges join the group of exchanges that stopped providing services for Russian users after their attack on Ukraine. The measures are a part of the sanctions against Putin’s regime by blocking IP addresses coming from Russia. Among the trading, venues are Gopax, Bithumb, Korbit, and Upbit.

The list of embargoes imposed on Russia kept on growing as the latest example came from South Korean exchanges. The nation’s largest crypto exchange by transactions announced they will start rejecting withdrawing the requests from the Russian IP addresses:

“We’ve blocked subscriptions by users in countries which are at high risks of money laundering, in line with guidelines of the Financial Action Task Forces.”

Another large platform that undertook such policy was Gopax as it also barred IP addresses from Russia but also froze about 20 accounts registered from the Russian users. The exchanges that halted their services also include Korbit and Bithumb. Unlike the Korean companies, Kraken and Binance also vowed not to restrict servicing Russian-based users because crypto provides “greater financial freedom” and such a move could oppose these principles. Jesse Powell as the CEO of Kraken, exposed a similar stance saying that BTC is the embodiment of libertarian values.

Powell said that his company can’t freeze the accounts for Russian clients without legal requirements and assumed that most of the users are likely to be against Putin’s attack on Ukraine. Some politicians and experts opined that imposing regulations in the crypto industry is more critical than ever and Russia can use these assets to bypass the monetary penalties. Among these individuals is Christine Lagarde who is the President of the European Central Bank as well as Hillary Clinton.

The latter said she is very disappointed that some crypto trading venues refused to stop providing services for Russian-based users:

“I was disappointed to see that some of the so-called crypto exchanges, not all of them, but some of them are refusing to end transactions with Russia for some philosophy of libertarianism or whatever.”

Clinton thinks that everybody should do as much as they can to isolate the Russian economy and to pressurize Vladimir Putin even further:

“I think the Treasury Department, I think the Europeans should look at how they can prevent the crypto markets from giving an escape hatch to Russia.”