It has recently come to light that the EU member states are discussing new limits on crypto transactions between Russia and Europe. For example, the CoinDesk exchange says that current sanctions limiting transfers over 10000 Euros to crypto wallets in Europe will be lifted. New sanctions would completely ban any crypto payments from Russia to Europe.
The president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced a new sanctions package that, according to her, would cost Russia 7 billion Euros. The details of the newest sanctions package are yet to be published, since they haven’t been approved by all EU member states.
In May of 2022, the Coinbase exchange gave a warning to Russian users that could be facing EU sanctions. The statement from Coinbase said that accounts of Russian users could be blocked, the exchange advised users to withdraw their funds.
Will the new sanctions affect Russians?
In fact, all European crypto services have long since stopped servicing Russian citizens, with very few exceptions. These sanctions are nothing new, merely an attempt by EU lawmakers to improve their image. There is room for restrictions of crypto in the new sanctions package. However, due to their internal policies, most European crypto services were not working with users from Russia even before the February events.
European services play a small role in the global crypto industry, which means that new sanctions will have no effect on Russian crypto investors.
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