Ukraine appeals to U.S. authorities as several bitcoin exchanges exit the Ukrainian market

Alexander Bornyakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation for IT Development, appealed to American authorities amid the exit from the Ukrainian market of several bitcoin exchanges due to regulatory requirements and difficulties in identifying users from Crimea. The CoinDesk documents obtained show this.

Journalists gained access to the emails of former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Because of the Crimea-related measures in 2020, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on several individuals. In the face of this, several exchanges ceased servicing users in Ukraine.

The documents show that in October 2020 Bornyakov sought clarifications from the State Department and the U.S. Treasury.

He asked the U.S. authorities to clarify regulatory requirements and noted that Ukraine is not subject to sanctions or restrictions relating to Crimea.

Bornyakov confirmed to ForkLog that he had approached the U.S. Treasury. The official did not receive a response.

“This year we intend to contact the American authorities again and hope for a positive outcome of the negotiations,” he said.

CoinDesk found that crypto-industry participants and other stakeholders in a number of letters contacted U.S. authorities in an attempt to clarify and resolve various regulatory issues. Some redirected to lower-level officials, others went unanswered.

In September 2020, the cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex announced the termination of servicing users in Ukraine and several other countries for “regulatory reasons.”

In the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation stated, that Bittrex was forced to discontinue servicing residents of the country due to problems with identifying users from Crimea.

As explained ForkLog experts, to meet sanctions-list requirements and maintain licenses, crypto platforms must verify that a user is not from Crimea.

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