Binance CEO Says Using Crypto To Avoid Sanctions Is A Myth

The Binance CEO says using crypto to avoid sanctions is a myth and believes that nobody smart will use it like that so let’s find out more in our latest Binance news.

Changpeng Zhao, the Binance CEO says using crypto is a terrible option for evading sanctions. Cryptocurrencies have really come in handy to provide help for the Ukrainian government as well as other NGOs which managed to secure donations and help the country fight the war with Russia. However, the concerns were that the rich Russian oligarchs will try to slip past the sanctions imposed by the Western nations by using crypto. CZ thinks that nobody smart will choose crypto to do so.

In an interview with CNN, he said that crypto Is actually too traceable because of the underlying blockchain technology:

“If you look at the data, nobody smart does that. Crypto is too traceable, the governments around the world are increasingly very good at tracking crypto transactions. So crypto is not good for that.”

Binance joined other crypto giants like Coinbase and Kraken in declining to freeze millions of Russian user accounts even though it said that the platform complies with the government sanctions. When asked about his take on the war, Zhao said that Binance is against it and the politicians are the ones that start wars:

“We are not against the people. There are many people on both sides of Ukraine and Russia that are suffering and we want to help those people.”

Despite the increasing concerns about crime and sanctions evasion related to crypto, it is important to know that fiat is still quite common when it comes to making illegal trades. This is something that not just CZ outlined but the US Treasury Department had confirmed recently. In the reports, which included money laundering, proliferation financing, and terrorist financing, the US Treasury said that the use of the asset class for money laundering remains below one of fiat and other traditional methods.

Tom Robinson who is the co-founder of Elliptic said that crypto is not a perfect solution for avoiding authorities and sanctions because digital assets are known to have the best privacy but they can be traceable because everything is stored on teh blockchain.