Coinbase Sanctions Russian Users - Complying With Requests

Coinbase Sanctions Russia

Welcome back to the Tribe! In this post we dive into the news that Coinbase has become one of the first large exchanges to comply with requests for sanctions.

Nothing should be considered investment or financial advice. Enjoy the ride!

Coinbase Sanctions Russia

Coinbase, one of the top cryptocurrency exchanges is the first to comply with the directive. The freeze was not arbitrary as the exchange earlier agreed to freeze only accounts owned by individuals in the sanction list.

Sanction Requests

Recently there have been calls from authorities that cryptocurrency exchanges should freeze the accounts of Russian nationals. This is a part of the widespread sanctions meant to pressure Russia for invading Ukraine.

In an official blog post, the exchange affirmed their commitment to the sanction by various countries on Russia.

Their position according to the blog post is;

“Sanctions play a vital role in promoting national security and deterring unlawful aggression, and Coinbase fully supports these efforts by government authorities.”

Although Russia is not one of the 100 countries the crypto exchange offer services to, it announced the freezing of 25,000 Russian wallet addresses. According to the exchange, “to play our part in these critical economic sanctions, Coinbase implements a multi-layered, global sanctions program.”

First Steps

The multi-layered global sanctions implemented by Coinbase includes the following steps;

First, block access to sanctioned actors. To achieve this, the exchange will require identifying information such as name and country of residence from individuals seeking to open an account.

“If a customer lives in a sanctioned country or region, or if they are identified as a sanctioned individual or entity, they cannot open an account on our platform.” the exchange said in its blog post.”

Coinbase is also exploring geofencing options that block access to users from sanctioned parts of the world. This is also part of its wide-reaching effort to block access from its services to sanctioned actors.

Another step to implement the sanction program set up by the exchange is to augment the move to block sanctioned actors from opening an account with them. This is because sanctioned actors might try to evade blocked access.

Finally, the exchange is also proactive to anticipate threats from blocked actors. According to the blog post;

“Coinbase maintains a sophisticated blockchain analytics program to identify high-risk behavior, study emerging threats, and develop new mitigations. For example, we have methods for identifying accounts held by sanctioned individuals outside of Coinbase, even if we don’t have direct access to their personal information.”

25,000 Accounts

In a statement announcing the freezing of the Russian accounts, the exchange said;

Today, Coinbase blocks over 25,000 addresses related to Russian individuals or entities we believe to be engaging in illicit activity, many of which we have identified through our own proactive investigations. Once we identified these addresses, we shared them with the government to further support sanctions enforcement

Coinbase further highlighted the advantages of digital assets in law enforcement and carrying out sanctions without evasion.

According to the exchange,

“digital asset transactions are traceable, permanent, and public. As a result, digital assets can actually enhance our ability to detect and deter evasion compared to the traditional financial system.”

This is the first move towards sanctions by the crypto community, in the coming days we will see how other exchanges respond.