{"id":1364862,"date":"2022-03-08T13:07:23","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T18:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1364862"},"modified":"2022-03-08T13:07:26","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T18:07:26","slug":"coinbase-blacklists-25000-russian-crypto-addresses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/coinbase-blacklists-25000-russian-crypto-addresses\/","title":{"rendered":"Coinbase Blacklists 25,000 Russian Crypto Addresses"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcoinbase-blacklists-25000-russian-crypto-addresses%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1364862&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"subheading\">Coinbase, one of the world\u2019s top cryptocurrency exchanges, says it has blocked 25,000 cryptocurrency addresses linked to Russia, and released a statement saying it is \u201ccommitted to complying with sanctions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This follows a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2022-03-07\/biden-to-sign-crypto-order-as-industry-faces-sanctions-pressure?srnd=premium\">report in Bloomberg<\/a> that the Biden administration is planning an executive order to coordinate federal regulation of the cryptocurrency industry, with national security concerns reportedly a focus of the efforts.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<div id=\"attachment_17404650\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/media.breitbart.com\/media\/2021\/08\/bitcoin-altcoin-cryptocurrency-stock-market-getty.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Photo by JACK GUEZ\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_20001602\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Vladimir-Putin-4.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-20001602\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Vladimir-Putin-4.jpg\" alt=\"Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the nation in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Feb. 21, 2022. Russia&#039;s Putin has recognized the independence of separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, raising tensions with West. (Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Russian President Vladimir Putin (Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The government of Canada also tangled with the cryptocurrency industry recently, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2022\/02\/25\/ted-cruz-praises-bitcoin-wallet-nunchuk-io-for-standing-up-to-canadian-tyranny\/\">after it attempted to shut down the cryptocurrency funds of Canadian citizens who participated in the Freedom Convoy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>Unlike decentralized exchanges and self-custodial wallets, centralized exchanges like Coinbases operate in a manner closer to traditional banks, and have the ability to freeze or shut down their customers\u2019 accounts.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.coinbase.com\/using-crypto-tech-to-promote-sanctions-compliance-8a17b1dabd68\">blog post<\/a> on Coinbase\u2019s website, the chief legal officer of the company, Paul Grewal, explained how Coinbase enforces international sanctions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo open a Coinbase account, individuals and entities must provide identifying information, including their name and country of residence. We screen this information via an independent vendor before permitting an individual to transact,\u201d wrote Grewal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf 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. Similarly, we use geofencing controls to prevent access to the Coinbase website, as well as our products and services, by anyone using an IP address in a sanctioned geography (e.g., Crimea, North Korea, Syria, and Iran).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Grewal also took the additional step of arguing that it was easier to launder money to sanctioned actors through fiat currency than through cryptocurrency, because transactions of digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum are \u201ctraceable, permanent, and public.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cAs a result, digital assets can actually enhance our ability to detect and deter evasion compared to the traditional financial system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Grewal also noted that the size of the global cryptocurrency market is too small to be of any use to a superpower like Russia.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201c[T]he Russian government and other sanctioned actors would need virtually unobtainable amounts of digital assets to meaningfully counteract current sanctions,\u201d wrote Grewal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Russian central bank alone holds over $630 billion in largely immobilized reserve assets. That\u2019s larger than the total market capitalization of all but one digital asset, and 5\u201310x the total daily traded volume of all digital assets. As a result, trying to obscure large transactions using open and transparent crypto technology would be far more difficult than other established methods (e.g., using fiat, art, gold, or other assets). This doesn\u2019t mean that bad actors can\u2019t try, but circumventing restrictions on this scale would require massive purchases that would be prohibitively expensive and detectable, as this buying activity would likely lead to price spikes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Coinbase\u2019s messaging differs from that of Binance, the world\u2019s largest centralized cryptocurrency exchange. While Binance, like Coinbase, agreed to comply with sanctions against individuals specified by the international community, its messaging emphasized that it would not blacklist ordinary Russian citizens.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B4\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cCrypto is meant to provide greater financial freedom for people across the globe. To unilaterally decide to ban people\u2019s access to their crypto would fly in the face of the reason why crypto exists,\u201d said a Binance spokesperson last week.<\/p>\n<p>The moves by centralized exchanges to blacklist addresses illustrates the differences between self-custodial and non-custodial cryptocurrency wallets.<\/p>\n<p>Self-custodial wallets like those created by Bitcoin wallet service\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2022\/02\/25\/ted-cruz-praises-bitcoin-wallet-nunchuk-io-for-standing-up-to-canadian-tyranny\/\">Nunchuk.io<\/a>\u00a0are more secure for users, because there is no central control over the digital wallets, which belong solely to their users.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2022\/02\/25\/ted-cruz-praises-bitcoin-wallet-nunchuk-io-for-standing-up-to-canadian-tyranny\/\">Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) recently praised Bitcoin<\/a>\u00a0for its ability to operate beyond the control and sanctions of governments, and praised Nunchuk in particular for ridiculing the Canadian government\u2019s demands to freeze cryptocurrency holdings belonging to the Freedom Convoy truckers\u2019 protest and its supporters.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.\u00a0He is the author of\u00a0<a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/DELETED-Techs-Battle-Movement-Election\/dp\/154605930X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\">#DELETED: Big Tech\u2019s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coinbase, one of the world\u2019s top cryptocurrency exchanges, says it has blocked 25,000 cryptocurrency addresses linked to Russia, and released a statement saying it is \u201ccommitted to complying with sanctions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1364862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1364862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1364862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1364862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1364862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}