EUROPE MULLS CRYPTO CONTROLS TO TIGHTEN SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA

The European Union (EU) is considering new rules that would make it more difficult for Russian oligarchs and government agencies to move money by laundering it through digital currencies, the Financial Times reported. 
Among those calling for tighter oversight is Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, who urged laws forbidding firms dealing in crypto assets or transactions to service Russian clients, the FT said. 
However, “if people want to avoid sanctions, there’s always multiple methods,” Changpeng Zhao, CEO of the crypto platform Binance, said last week in a BBC interview.  
“You can do it using cash, diamonds, gold,” he said. “I don’t think crypto is anything special.”  
European authorities have noticed a rise in the use of crypto since Russia invaded Ukraine, Paolo Gentiloni, EU economics commissioner, told the FT. 
Legislators in the U.K. and U.S. also have expressed concerns that Bitcoin and crypto could be used to circumvent the sanctions; Switzerland is freezing crypto assets held within its borders by sanctioned Russian entities and individuals, as we report in “Switzerland Freezes Russian Crypto Assets” in this issue.  
Democrats on the U.S. Senate’s banking committee wrote a letter to treasury secretary Janet Yellin warning that digital currencies could be used to skirt the bans.  
The treasury did not respond to the letter, but a department official said it would be difficult for Russia’s government or oligarchs to use crypto to beat the sanctions.  
Britain’s parliament is “considering how the U.K., along with its allies, can prevent crypto assets from emerging as loopholes,” member Joanna Penn of the House of Lords told her colleagues last week. 
TREND FORECAST: As regulators tighten their hold on digital currencies, crypto’s volatility will decrease. The result will be greater comfort for investors, but fewer crashes and windfall paydays for speculators.