The Council of the European Union has cut Russians off from certain cryptocurrency services as part of a package of restrictive measures against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “brutal aggression against Ukraine and its people.”
In a Friday announcement, the EU council said it would be closing potential loopholes in using digital assets for Russian entities and individuals to evade sanctions with a “prohibition on providing high-value crypto-asset services” to the country. The action was one of three financial measures the European Commission proposed alongside banning transactions and freezing assets connected to four Russian banks as well as a “prohibition on providing advice on trusts to wealthy Russians.”