Leonid Volkov: Court ban did not touch Navalny’s campaign Bitcoin wallets

The Moscow City Court’s April 27 decision to ban the use of bank accounts for the work of FBK* and Navalny’s headquarters does not apply to the organization’s cryptocurrency wallets. Public figure Leonid Volkov told ForkLog in a comment.

“The court’s ban has not touched and cannot touch Bitcoin wallets. And we do not believe that it could be extended to them in any way. And if it is extended, we would not care about it,” Volkov said.

On April 16, the Moscow prosecutor’s office filed a suit seeking to designate FBK* and Navalny’s offices as extremist organisations. During a closed hearing on April 27, the Moscow City Court, as a provisional measure in the suit, imposed a ban on certain actions, including disseminating information about themselves in the media, participating in elections and referendums, organising public events and using bank accounts except for paying taxes.

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for April 29.

Declaring FBK* and Navalny’s offices as extremist organisations would mean a ban on their symbols and administrative liability for their display, a ban on any banking activity, and criminal liability for financing the organisations. Media reports about them in the media must be marked with a notice of the extremist designation.

Since the day of the unauthorized protest on April 21 the organisation’s Bitcoin wallet has received more than 0.107 BTC (over $5,890 at the time of writing).

Earlier ForkLog reported that in the first three days after Alexei Navalny’s return to Russia, 1.16 BTC were transferred to his campaign’s Bitcoin wallet. Another 3.5 BTC arrived during protests on January 23.

On the day of the hearing to convert Navalny’s suspended sentence into a real one, donations totalled 0.078 BTC.

Leonid Volkov attributed the rising inflows to “a correlation with political events”.

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