Binance Rejects Ukraine’s Appeal To Freeze Russian Accounts

Key Insights:

• A Ukrainian crypto company DMarket froze all Russian and Belarus crypto assets and NFT skins.
• Binance stated explicitly that they wouldn’t be following suit, citing a threat to crypto’s essence of financial freedom.
• Many other exchanges are providing support for crypto donations to Ukraine.

The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has made crypto an integral part of the resistance. Ukraine has been consistently appealing to people worldwide to support their country and sabotage Russia altogether.

Freeze the Motherland

FXEmpire recently reported on the Vice Prime Minister and the Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine appealing to all the major cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide to block Russian investors.

He cited that not only should the Russian and Belarusian politicians’ accounts be blocked, but even ordinary citizens should be sabotaged.

In response to his request, one of Ukraine’s crypto and NFT, Metaverse items exchange, announced that they would be adhering to his request. DMarket stated:

“Ukrainian-born startup DMarket cuts all relationships with Russia and Belarus due to the invasion of Ukraine. The registration on the platform is prohibited for users from Russia and Belarus;  Accounts of previously registered users from these areas are frozen;”

However, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world refused to do so. Binance, in a statement to Cointelegraph, said:

“We are not going to unilaterally freeze millions of innocent users’ accounts. Crypto is meant to provide greater financial freedom for people across the globe.”

Similarly, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken’s CEO, Jesse Powell, also said that the platform would not be freezing any Russian accounts.

However, Powell did say that should a legal requirement arise to do the same, the platform would block the accounts then.

Binance’s relationship with Russia has always been positive. Even during the crypto regulation debacle, Binance gained support from the administration.

The Association of Banks of Russia even declared the Director of Binance in Russia, Olga Goncharova, as head of the Expert Center for Digital Financial Assets and Digital Currencies.

On the Other Hand

Binance, while opposing the request of banning, proceeded to help the suffering Ukrainians. Binance’s charity arm Binance Charity announced yesterday that they would be donating $10 million to Ukraine. 

Similarly, payment processor Coingate also announced its direct donation service to the National Bank of Ukraine. The donated money would help and fund the Ukrainian armed forces. Litecoin endorsed the same on Twitter.

Payment processor @CoinGatecom has designed a portal to support Ukraine with #Litecoin donations. Beware of fake copycat sites. https://t.co/My7sZbwBeG https://t.co/pNgLCyf7VX

— Litecoin (@litecoin) February 27, 2022

Thus, while the conflict of interest continues to divide the priorities of individuals, the only important matter is a ceasefire of the invasion. As negotiations continue to decide the same, the world waits anxiously on a decision soon.