As a reminder, the issue of possible blocking of Russian accounts on cryptocurrency exchanges emerged last week amid massive sanctions against Russia and the departure of a huge number of brands from the country. However, the management of platforms Coinbase and Binance did not support the premature blocking of ordinary residents of the state. They noted that such actions would only be carried out if directed by the relevant authorities.

And if a person ends up on the sanctions list, he or she will also be blocked.

Representatives of the Swiss platforms have decided to freeze the digital assets of Russian citizens, and have done so already. However, this does not apply to all residents of the country.

What will happen to cryptocurrencies of Russians

Swiss Finance Minister Guy Parmelin said that 223 Russian citizens, including people close to President Vladimir Putin’s entourage, have fallen under the restrictions. According to Decrypt’s sources, they are freezing bank accounts, physical assets as well as cryptocurrencies within the country’s jurisdiction.

The ministry said that the crypto freeze “was necessary” because Switzerland wants to protect the integrity of its blockchain industry. It is quite voluminous: according to a report by Swiss venture capital firm CV VC, as of December 2021, some 1,128 cryptocurrency companies had headquartered in Switzerland or the neighbouring Principality of Liechtenstein.

Swiss Finance Minister Guy Parmelin

Recall that on Wednesday last week, the European Union announced plans to crack down on Russia’s ability to circumvent economic sanctions by using cryptocurrencies. Here is what French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on the matter.

We are taking action in particular on cryptocurrencies or crypto-assets, which should not be used to circumvent financial sanctions adopted by the 27 EU countries.

Calls for cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase and Binance to ban and freeze Russian access to cryptocurrencies have also been successful in a sense. Many executives of major crypto platforms have admitted that they will be forced to follow the legal demands of financial regulators if it comes to harsh sanctions on accounts linked to Russian citizens.

Read also: Swiss city to 'de facto' start accepting crypto as payment. What does this mean?

Meanwhile, the volume of cryptocurrency transactions on Russian cryptocurrency exchanges has dropped by 50 percent in the last week. According to Chainalysis, while last week the volume of crypto exchange transactions in the Russian segment was just over $70 million, the figure has now dropped to $34 million.

Speaking about the possible reason for such a decrease in the trading volume, Citigroup analyst Alexander Saunders admitted that before that the participation of the Russian Federation in the total number of transactions was also relatively small. That said, the Russian segment of the crypto market has had little impact on Bitcoin’s recent price dynamics. Here is the expert’s rejoinder, in which he shares his view of the situation.

Russian trading volumes are still relatively low, suggesting that Bitcoin’s rise in price is more likely due to investor positioning in anticipation of an expected increase in demand for the crypto from Russians in the future.

Bitcoin exchange rate over the past 30 days

In other words, so far, most Russians have not paid proper attention to digital assets. With the rapid fall of the ruble, Bitcoin has never gained popularity in the Russian Federation, although in the context of the economic crisis, the coin may indeed become a savior for the citizens’ savings.

At the same time, the country’s citizens who are already familiar with digital assets have clearly added to their savings. As noted by Kaiko experts in late February, trading volumes in the pair between Bitcoin and the ruble have increased rapidly. In this regard, we can assume that cryptocurrency connoisseurs decided to get rid of ruble savings in favor of BTC. Here is the corresponding chart.

Growth in trading volumes between Bitcoin and the ruble

At the same time, Bitcoin’s market capitalization has already exceeded that of the ruble. This is due to depreciation of the Russian national currency.

Comparison of Bitcoin and ruble market capitalization


We believe that a full-fledged ban on the use of cryptocurrency exchanges is unlikely to affect ordinary Russians for the time being. However, as the events of recent days have shown, everything can change at any moment. Therefore, it is almost impossible to make any predictions about the development of the situation.


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