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The European Central Bank has voiced its concern that cryptos can be used to evade Russian sanctions. But the co-founder and CEO of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, said cryptos cannot be used to dodge sanctions.
In an interview with CNN's Richard Quest, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said his firm complies with all government sanctions very strictly. "We will block anyone on the sanction list, or anyone remotely related to them like the wires, the lawyers, mules and friends, and that is our position," Zhao said.
"On using cryptos to avoid sanctions, I think that is a mess. If you look at the data, nobody smart does that. Crypto is too traceable. The governments around the world are very good at tracing crypto transactions. So crypto is not good for that," he said.
In the first week of March, crypto exchanges Coinbase Global Inc and Binance, rejected calls for a blanket ban on all Russian users to stop their platforms from being used to bypass Western sanctions.
"We do not have the ability to freeze normal Russian users’ assets because that is illegal for us to do. That's for governments to decide," Zhao said in the CNN interview.
"We are totally against the war. We are against politicians and dictators who start the war. But we are not against the people. There are many people on both sides of Ukraine and Russia that are suffering, and we want to help those people," Zhao said.
Founded in China in 2017, Binance doesn't have a global base yet. The company has been pushing its presence in the Middle East. Recently the company was granted a license to operate in Dubai and Bahrain.
Binance Holding, the parent firm of the cryptocurrency exchange, is also making a strategic investment of $200 million in news publisher Forbes.
(Writing by Seban Scaria; editing by Daniel Luiz)
