Elliptic, a blockchain security firm, discovered a wallet suspected to belong to sanctioned Russian oligarchs. This arose when the forensic firm began working with government agencies to unearth crypto wallets belonging to sanctioned individuals and organizations.
As a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sanctions have been imposed on oligarchs and organizations with ties to the country.
Elliptic is a blockchain security and forensics firm based in the United Kingdom. They are collaborating with the government to unearth the digital assets of sanctioned parties.
They uncovered a wallet containing massive crypto-asset holdings worth millions of dollars suspected to belong to sanctioned entities.
Tom Robinson, the co-founder of Elliptic spoke to Bloomberg on March 14, 2022, stating that these sanctioned Russians may try to use crypto assets to circumvent the activities of the authorities. Though it is widely accepted that this may not be the case for a lot of Russian Oligarchs.
On March 14, 2022, Tom Robinson, co-founder of Elliptic, told Bloomberg that the sanctioned Russians may attempt to evade the sanctions by using crypto assets. Though it is widely assumed that this is not the case for many Russian oligarchs.
The precise value and type of crypto assets discovered in the wallet were not disclosed. Robinson disclosed to Bloomberg,
“It is not realistic that the oligarchs could completely circumvent sanctions by moving all their wealth into crypto. Crypto is highly traceable. Crypto can and will be used to evade sanctions, but it is not the silver bullet.”
The blockchain security firm discovered hundreds of encryption services that allowed customers to purchase digital assets anonymously using rubles. Robinson stated that the compliance of crypto firms with regard to sanctions was extremely high, particularly by notable exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase.
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