Photo: Karen BLEIER / AFP / Getty Images
The CEO of Kraken Exchange, one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States, Jesse Powell, has refused to freeze the crypto assets of Russian investors, at a public request from the First Deputy Minister of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov. Powell explained his reasons on the social network Twitter
Among the reasons of the director of Kraken, highlights “a legal resource” . It gives as an example the action taken by the Canadian government to achieve this goal.
1/6 I understand the rationale for this request but, despite my deep respect for the Ukrainian people, @krakenfx cannot freeze the accounts of our Russian clients without a legal requirement to do so.
Russians should be aware that such a requirement could be imminent. #NYKNYC https://t.co/bMRrJzgF8N
— Jesse Powell (@jespow) February 28, 2022
For his part, for the Ukrainian official, Mykhailo Fedorov, freezing these accounts of Russian investors is an attempt to challenge the resources that Russia could receive, and thus seek to stop the war.
Jesse Powell, did not miss the opportunity to emphasize that “feels deep respect for the people of Ukraine”, however, considers that cryptocurrencies should be imposed more on individualism than on that kind of “nationalist alliance to a country”.
In addition, the director of Kraken was harsh in ruling that if it is about punishing countries that cause violence in the world, “it should start with the United States”.
“If we were to voluntarily freeze the financial accounts of residents of countries that unjustly attack and provoke violence around the world, step 1 would be to freeze all accounts in the United States ”.
The comments of support were immediate, mainly by the Russian crypto community. Many Russian citizens claimed that “they never wanted war” that the punishment should be for Putin , not for all Russian citizens.
Russia occupies the position 18 among cryptocurrency investors in the world, despite the fact that at the beginning of this year the Russian central bank spoke of the definitive suspension of the purchase, sale and mining of cryptocurrencies in that country.
When in January 2022, Russia stated in a statement the suspension of crypto mining in the country, claiming that energy consumption was being affected by this practice. And he decided that “the best solution is to ban cryptocurrency mining throughout Russia.”
For the CEO of the Californian company, “Bitcoin is the embodiment of libertarian values, which strongly favor individualism and human rights.” Jesse Powell remains quite active on social media and crypto investor forums. At the moment it has not taken any action to block, but it has been concerned about the threat of nuclear weapons.
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