Week in Review: Binance blocks Visa and Mastercard transactions issued in Russia, and Bitcoin price in rubles hits a new high

Binance halted support for Visa and Mastercard transactions issued in Russia; Russia faced new sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine; the ruble-denominated price of Bitcoin hit a new high, and other developments of the past week.

Bitcoin price climbs above $42,000, but unable to sustain the level

In response to the March 9 publication of U.S. President Joe Biden’s order to coordinate federal agencies in regulating cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin quotes rose 8.5%, to $42,594 (on Binance).

However, the next day there was a correction — the price of Bitcoin slipped below $40,000. At the time of writing, digital gold was trading near $39,000.

Against the sharp depreciation of the ruble, the Bitcoin price in rubles reached an all-time high of 5.03 million rubles.

Most digital assets in the top-10 by market cap closed the week in the red. The exceptions were XRP (+3.8%), Terra (+4%), and Polkadot (+3.8%).

According to CoinCodex, over the week mid-cap assets led gains with the Green Metaverse Token (GMT) rising by 152%.

The governance token of the DeFi project Anchor Protocol was the biggest faller, with ANC down 29%.

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at $1.82 trillion. Bitcoin’s dominance index rose to 40.7%.

Binance blocks transactions with Visa and Mastercard cards issued in Russia

The cryptocurrency exchange Binance stopped supporting transactions with Visa and Mastercard cards issued in Russia. The restrictions took effect on March 9 at 21:00 UTC (midnight March 10 in Moscow time).

A company spokesperson told ForkLog that the restrictions apply solely to the exchange’s crypto-to-fiat service. In P2P trading, clients can use cards issued by Russian banks. The exception is sanctioned credit institutions.

New sanctions against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine

The Western Union money-transfer system suspended operations in Russia and Belarus. Apple Pay and Google also ceased operations, and PayPal urged Russian clients to withdraw funds from their accounts by March 18.

The banking sector was not left out — Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan said they would wind down business in Russia. Deutsche Bank announced it would cease operations in Russia.

British processing service Wirex restricted access for Russian citizens to its products.

Satoshi Labs stopped delivering hardware wallets for Trezor to Russia. On February 28 the company donated €1 million in Bitcoin to Ukrainian charitable organisations.

The cloud computing platform Amazon Web Services (AWS) stopped registering new users from Russia and Belarus. The streaming platform Netflix said it would pause operations in Russia.

The cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase blocked 25,000 addresses from Russia linked to Russian individuals and entities. According to the statement, the accounts were involved in illicit activity.

Meanwhile, the Roskomnadzor-blocked social network Twitter launched a Tor version, and “RoskomSvoboda” urged global companies not to cut Russians off from the internet, as such measures deprive them of reliable external information.

The Bank of Russia barred banks from selling cash currency and restricted cash withdrawals for citizens

From March 9 to September 9, 2022, the Bank of Russia banned banks from selling cash currency and limited withdrawals from current deposits to $10,000. During this period currency will be dispensed only in dollars regardless of account currency.

In an interview with ForkLog, Indefibank CEO Sergei Mendelyev said that a black crypto market has intensified in Russia following the ban on currency operations.

The global community accelerated work on cryptocurrency regulation

The European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs will vote on the final version of the MiCA cryptocurrency regulation on March 14, 2022. The bill’s rapporteur, Stefan Berger, said the language that could be read as a potential Bitcoin ban was removed.”

The EU also agreed on a new sanctions package against Russian officials and oligarchs involved in the war in Ukraine. The restrictions will affect crypto assets.

U.S. President Joe Biden on March 9 issued an executive order to coordinate federal agencies in regulating cryptocurrencies. The administration outlined six “key priorities”.

The U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) warned about Russia using cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions. Elliptic analysts also saw a risk that Russia could bypass sanctions through mining and hackers.

Meanwhile, Dubai authorities enacted a law on virtual assets and established a regulator — the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.

FTX added support for the UST stablecoin and announced Europe expansion

The cryptocurrency exchange FTX added support for the Terra ecosystem’s algorithmic stablecoin UST. This week, the LUNA price surged to a new all-time high above $100, and last week the value of Terra staking assets exceeded $30 billion.

The rise in Terra’s token price is driven by demand for the UST stablecoin, which requires burning LUNA to issue. This makes LUNA scarcer and supports its price. The growing popularity of stablecoins was noted by Santiment analysts who observed accumulation on large USDT addresses.

FTX will also expand globally by establishing FTX Europe, having obtained a license from the Cypriot financial regulator.

Binance launched the payment company Bifinity and signaled further acquisitions

Binance announced the launch of Bifinity, positioned as an official payments provider in fiat and digital currencies.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao explained plans to invest in non-crypto businesses to accelerate the broader adoption of digital assets within the traditional financial system.

In Tornado Cash, users from Russia cannot be blocked

The Ethereum mixer Tornado Cash cannot ensure compliance with sanctions imposed on Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine. This was stated by co-founder Roman Semenov.

Semenov emphasised that the project does not provide custodial services and does not rely on centralized hosting to run the application.

“We [the developers] do not have more access than any other users. … All we do is write code and publish it on GitHub. This aligns with the definition of freedom of speech, so writing code cannot be illegal,” he said.

The Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract exceeded 10 million ETH in value

The amount of funds locked in the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract exceeded 10 million ETH (~$26.1 billion), representing about 8.4% of the total supply of the second-largest cryptocurrency.

This week, traders increased their positions in put options, not ruling out further declines in the price of the second-largest cryptocurrency.

Also on ForkLog:

• Avalanche Foundation launched a $290 million incentive program for subnet developers.
• In China there were Ethereum mining GPUs based on mobile processors.
• American hedge fund Fir Tree Capital Management took a short position against USDT.

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