Hillary Clinton calls out crypto exchanges for failing to ban Russian users

Hillary Clinton, the former presidential candidate in the US elections, has criticized the cryptocurrency exchanges that have failed to block and freeze the accounts of Russian users. She has now called for a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets.

Last week, the vice prime minister of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, had urged all the major exchanges to halt their services to Russian users, but this request has been denied by some of the largest exchange platforms.

Hillary Clinton wants exchanges to ban Russian users

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Clinton was speaking in an interview with MSNBC where she said that she was disappointed with the failure of some of these exchanges to halt their services to users based in Russia. She said,

I was disappointed to see that some of the so-called crypto exchanges, not all of them, but some of them are refusing to end transactions with Russia for some philosophy of libertarianism or whatever.

She also noted that everyone needed to do their part in isolating Russia from the global economic system. “I think the Treasury Department, I think the Europeans should look at how they can prevent the crypto markets from giving an escape hatch to Russia.” This is not the first time that Clinton is raising concerns over the crypto sector.

Most of the exchanges are still operating in Russia, with some such as Binance, Coinbase and Kraken openly saying that they will not impose a unilateral ban on all users in Russia and Belarus.

ECB president calls for regulations

The president of the European Central bank, Christine Lagarde, has also called for comprehensive regulation of digital assets to ensure they are not used by Russia to evade the sanctions.

“There are always criminal ways to circumvent prohibition, which is why it’s so critically important that MiCA is pushed through as quickly as possible, so we have a regulatory framework,” Lagarde said.

Other members of the EU such as Italy, Germany and Spain have also been supportive of imposing sanctions against Russia. These countries said that criminals could use Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for purposes such as money laundering.