US Treasury Adds Moscow-Based BitRiver Miner To Sanctions List

The US Treasury adds Moscow-based BitRiver miner to its Specially Designated nationals list which is technically a sanctions list as we can see more today in our cryptocurrency news today.

The US Government via the US Treasury added Moscow-based BitRiver miner on their Specially Designated Nationals List. Ten other Russian subsidiaries of the company were also added to the list. This is the first time that the US sanctioned a crypto mining company and the sanctions are aimed at harming President Vladimir Putin and his allies after the attack on Ukraine. The government statement issued on Wednesday reads:

“Treasury is also taking action against companies in Russia’s virtual currency mining industry.”

By operating multiple server farms that sell virtual currency mining capacity across the world, these companies are helpin Russians monetize their natural resources:

“Russia has a comparative advantage in crypto mining due to energy resources and a cold climate. However, mining companies rely on imported computer equipment and fiat payments, which makes them vulnerable to sanctions.”

 

The announcement came a day after the IFM issued a report warning that Russia can try and use crypto to avoid sanctions. The US according to today’s Treasury statemetn is committed to ensuring that no asset becomes a mechanism for the Putin regime to avoid the impact of the sanctions.

As recently reported, The developer platform Github suspended Russian devs accounts associated with organizations sanctioned by the US government. The sanctioned accounts include some of the biggest banks in Russia like Alfa-Bank, Sberbank, and other individual developers with links to the sanctioned firms but most individual accounts without links or ties to the companies were blocked in the process. Researcher Sergey Bobrov who has no links to such firms reported that his account also got suspended and then restored.

The EU bans crypto services to Russia as it took more steps to sanction the country following the war in Ukraine. The  EU introduced a prohibition on providing high-value crypto-asset services to the country and it forms part of the fifth package of measures announced against Russia since the invasion of Ukraine started on February 24. the European Commission welcomed today’s agreement to adopt the fifth package of restrictive measures against Russia as a response to the brutal aggression against Ukraine.