Russians are headed toward crypto platforms of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in an attempt to save their fortunes, requesting crypto firms to liquidate billions of dollars, as per Reuters.
Similarly, some of them want to buy real estate in UAE, while others are desired to convert their assets into fiat money and hide it.
An exchange confirmed that they received too many requests from Swiss brokers in the past ten days, asking to liquidate Bitcoins worth billions of dollars as they are worried Switzerland’s authorities might freeze the funds. The firm said all of the requests were for $2 billion or more.
The executive of the platform said they usually receive one inquiry in a month for large transactions, and he added;
We’ve had like five or six in the past two weeks. None of them have come off yet – they’ve sort of fallen over at the last minute, which is not rare – but we’ve never had this much interest.
The executive also mentioned;
We have one guy – I don’t know who he is, but he came through a broker – and they’re like, ‘we want to sell 125,000 bitcoin’. And I’m like, ‘what? That’s $6 billion, guys’. And they’re like, ‘yeah, we’re going to send it to a company in Australia.
On the other side, the supervisor of Switzerland’s market has refused to pass comments on crypto transaction volumes.
Digital assets are subject to the same sanctions as imposed on the traditional holdings of Russian users and individuals, so funds of sanctioned persons must be frozen in Switzerland, stated the country’s Secretariat of economic affairs (SECO) in an email.
Dubai Becomes Safe Heaven For Russians
Dubai, a business hub for Gulf countries and a growing crypto market, has refused to take sides between Moscow and the Western allies. This has opened a way for Russian to save their ventures there.
Also, a real estate broker partnered with a crypto firm to help people buy at their ease has said:
We’ve been seeing a lot of Russians and even Belarusians coming to Dubai and bringing whatever they can bring, even in crypto.
A financial source of UAE addressed that many people have been buying properties in Dubai, using cryptocurrency to get their money out of jurisdictions safely in the Gulf state.
Cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide are blocking Russian accounts that the West sanctions over the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and Russia has named it “Special Operation.”
Similarly, the world’s biggest crypto exchanges, such as Binance and Coinabase, decided to comply with the sanction, saying they don’t want cryptocurrencies to become a reason to evade them.
Still, cryptocurrencies offer users a high degree of anonymity. That’s why European states like Estonia and Germany called for more tight supervision last week to detect other loopholes to prevent sanction evasion.
