Illuminated mining rigs operate inside racks at the CryptoUniverse cryptocurrency mining farm in Nadvoitsy, Russia, on March 18, 2021. There have been fears that Russian companies could use cryptocurrency to evade sanctions. Photo: Bloomberg
Opinion
Opinion
The View
Why cryptocurrencies will not solve Russia’s sanctions problem
- Not only can cryptocurrency fund flows be tracked, their decentralised nature makes the large-scale transactions needed to evade sanctions unfeasible
- A central bank digital currency could offer an alternative, but Russia’s digital rouble lacks the scale required, and China is very unlikely to allow the digital yuan to be used for this purpose
Illuminated mining rigs operate inside racks at the CryptoUniverse cryptocurrency mining farm in Nadvoitsy, Russia, on March 18, 2021. There have been fears that Russian companies could use cryptocurrency to evade sanctions. Photo: Bloomberg
