How Kraken, et al. responded to Ukraine’s request to ‘sabotage’ Russian users
The crypto-industry is being pulled into the Russia-Ukraine war, whether it wants to be there or not. After the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine tweeted asking “major crypto exchanges” to block the addresses of Russians and “sabotage” even civilian users, here’s how industry players reacted.
Kraken’s CEO and Co-founder Jesse Powell responded that while he respects the people of Ukraine, Kraken will not freeze the accounts of Russian users unless legally forced to do so. However, he warned Russian users that such a demand could be “imminent.”
Powell added,
“That requirement could come from your own government, as we have seen in Canada, in response to protests, bank runs and attempts to flee the country. It could come from foreign states, like the US, as a weapon to turn the Russian populace against its government’s policies.”
Furthermore, the exec remarked that if he must freeze the accounts of users whose countries are “unjustly attacking and provoking violence around the world,” the first target would be all U.S-based accounts.
However, the crypto-industry isn’t exactly a monolith – and at least one company complied. DMarket, a Ukraine-born Metaverse startup, claimed it has frozen the accounts of all users from Russia and Belarus.
Reactions were mixed as while some supported the move, others protested. They claimed that this decision violated the principles of decentralization in crypto.
<p lang=«en» dir=«ltr» xml:lang=«en»>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;
— DMarket (@dmarket) February 27, 2022
Apart
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