World’s biggest crypto exchange Binance says it will not block all Russian accounts
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On Sunday, Mykhailo Fedorov, vice prime minister of Ukraine, asked major exchanges to block the addresses of Russian users.
Binance said it is “not going to unilaterally freeze millions of innocent users’ accounts.”
Jesse Powell, CEO of Kraken, another major cryptocurrency exchange, said on Twitter that the company “cannot freeze the accounts of our Russian clients without a legal requirement to do so.”
Binance said Monday it will block the accounts of Russian individuals who have been sanctioned, but will not “unilaterally” freeze the accounts of all Russian users.
The comments come after Ukraine’s vice prime minister called on the major cryptocurrency exchange to block all Russian user accounts.
“We are not going to unilaterally freeze millions of innocent users’ accounts,” a spokesperson for Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, told CNBC.
“Crypto is meant to provide greater financial freedom for people across the globe. To unilaterally decide to ban people’s access to their crypto would fly in the face of the reason why crypto exists.”
