Crypto firm FTX founder slams crypto industry messaging on Russia sanctions

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Representations of cryptocurrencies are displayed in front of Russian flags in this picture illustration taken March 4, 2022. REUTERS/Florence Lo/

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BOCA RATON, Fla., March 18 (Reuters) – Communications from the cryptocurrency industry around sanctions on Russia have been counterproductive and do not reflect what the firms are actually doing, the head of crypto exchange FTX said.

Unlike payment companies, most crypto exchanges have rejected calls to cut off all Russian users, sparking concerns among US lawmakers that digital assets could be used to evade Western sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. read more

“I’m very frustrated with the messaging that our industry has had on this,” Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX, which was recently valued at $32 billion, told Reuters late Thursday.

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“I think it has not been helpful. I think it has been basically anti-regulatory, is how it’s been perceived, and I think that’s how it sounds, and I think that has caused a pretty big perception issue,” he said on the sidelines of a Futures Industry Association conference in Boca Raton, Florida.

Democratic US senators introduced a bill on Thursday that would enable the government to sanction foreign cryptocurrency firms doing business with sanctioned Russian entities and prevent them from transacting with US customers. read more

Bahamas-based FTX immediately cut off support to all sanctioned parties and severed access to all Russian banks, even those that are not sanctioned, so the exchange could not be used as a gateway between Russia and the rest of the world, Bankman-Fried said .

FTX still allows non-sanctioned Russian users to trade, with anti-money laundering checks, and is in communication with the US Treasury about what it is doing in Russia, said Bankman-Fried, a 30-year-old crypto billionaire.

Exchanges like Binance and Kraken have said cutting off all Russians goes against the industry’s libertarian values.

“I don’t think this is really about the content of the decisions,” Bankman-Fried said of such responses. “It’s about the way they’ve been presented.”

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Reporting by John McCrank; editing by Michelle Price and Jonathan Oatis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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