The US government warned Bitcoin exchanges not to provide convenience to Russia. What will be the impact of the new round of sanctions?

In the early morning of March 1, Beijing time, according to foreign media Bloomberg, the US government has put pressure on Bitcoin exchanges, warning them not to provide trading facilities to Russian individuals and entities on the sanctions list.

The U.S. Treasury Department mentioned in the new regulations urgently issued today that Americans are prohibited from providing any support to certain Russian oligarchs and entities. This is part of the plan to sanction Russia. This regulation will take effect on March 1.

Since last week, the United States and a coalition of European countries have been imposing sanctions on Putin and Russian officials, including the seizure of international assets held by the Russian Central Bank and the country's largest commercial and state-owned banks.

The international coalition also announced plans to disconnect some of Russia's largest banks from SWIFT, the interbank messaging network that underpins much of the global financial system.

The new round of sanctions is through cryptocurrency exchanges. Currently, U.S. Treasury officials have asked Binance, FTX and Coinbase to block the addresses of sanctioned individuals.

Previously, Binance and several other exchanges publicly stated that they would not block all Russian users and IP addresses, despite requests from Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov to freeze Russian users' accounts and block related IP addresses.

According to Bloomberg, Binance is at least willing to block wallets on the sanctions list provided by the U.S. Treasury Department.

But some market participants believe that it is still possible for the Russian government and individuals to evade economic sanctions through decentralized exchanges (DEX) and DeFi.

Industry participant Eric Wall commented:

“This is the moment when crypto leaves the basement and collides with the real world. It’s today, it’s here.”

As of now, the market price of Bitcoin has exceeded US$44,000, with a 24-hour increase of more than 16%.