It is worth noting that the prospect of the Russian government circumventing sanctions with crypto has been commented on more than once. For example, in March 2022, FBI chief Christopher Wray made it clear that he does not believe in this possibility. He believes that conventional money is more suitable for possible circumvention of restrictions.

How cryptocurrencies are used

Recall that back in late March, Yellen said that the cryptocurrency market was too small to be used to gain “enough room for manoeuvre” in the form of the Russian economy escaping sanctions pressure. During a regular House Financial Services Committee hearing this week, she noted that while “cryptocurrencies are a channel that we are concerned about, we have not yet seen significant sanctions evasion through them”.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen

Yellen made it clear that the Treasury Department continues to monitor the situation. In addition, she hinted that large transactions would be easily viewable on the blockchain – and if necessary, they would be immediately identified by analyst firms. Here is Janet’s rejoinder, in which she shares her take on the situation.

The attempt to use cryptocurrencies on a large scale is, in our view, very difficult to implement.

Accordingly, the US government does not believe in the prospect of states using cryptocurrencies. This viewpoint is understandable, as the coin niche is closely tied to banks, and the latter are actively restricted if necessary.

In late February, the US and its allies froze $400 billion in foreign assets held by the Russian central bank. This contributed to the currency crisis as the ruble lost much of its value against other currencies. Meanwhile, European leaders voted to block many Russian banks from the SWIFT network, which financial institutions use to coordinate transactions.

According to Decrypt’s sources, the Biden administration suspended oil and gas imports from Russia in early March. The U.S. has also restricted exports of technological equipment and software to Russia. All of these are multi-billion dollar projects, transactions and agreements whose value is so great that the crypto market simply does not have enough liquidity for all transactions. Therefore, on a large scale, sanctions evasion through crypto is very unlikely indeed.

While the Russian Federation is just thinking about full-scale adoption of digital assets, Miami is already actively pursuing it. To mark the launch of the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, Mayor Francis Suarez unveiled a laser-eyed bull statue designed to symbolise the city’s transformation into the self-proclaimed ‘cryptocurrency capital of the world’.

Miami’s bitcoin bull with Francis Suarez

The statue is a 3,000-pound robotic bull made in the same style as the Wall Street Attack Bull. The exhibit was commissioned by Florida-based financial services firm Tradestation. The event was warmly received by prominent members of the crypto community. Among them is Binance exchange CEO Changpen Zhao, who shared a photo of the statue on his Twitter.

This year, the crypto bull will greet 30,000 conference attendees and the statue will travel to the Miami-Dade College campus after the conference ends. The conference will take place over four days from April 6 to 9. The event features five different stages, the largest of which accommodates 15,000 people. Speakers include many selebrities from the cryptocurrency world: cryptographer Nick Szabo, cryptocurrency coder Jameson Lopp, Kraken cryptocurrency exchange executive Dan Held, PayPal founder Peter Thiel and others.


We believe that the scale of the cryptocurrency industry really does not allow them to be used to fully circumvent sanctions and other restrictions. As of today, coins have a market capitalisation of $2.1 trillion, while trading volumes per day barely exceed the equivalent of $99 billion. Obviously, such amounts are not enough to regularly pay for some goods and services for an entire nation.

By the way, the conference is sure to result in new announcements and forecasts from the above-mentioned speakers. There is more information about that in our millionaires’ crypto-chat. Other important details affecting the blockchain industry will be discussed there.

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