In wake of the unfolding war in Ukraine, the European Commission said on Wednesday that it will expand the scope of its sanctions against Russia and Belarus, as well as provide additional information on the virtual asset categorization.
Virtual assets come under the category of “transferable securities,” a categorization that is not included in the draft EU virtual asset law. After postponement this week, these laws, dubbed as MiCA, are set to be voted on by a pivotal committee in the week to come.
The announcement also reaffirmed the widely held belief that loans and credit can be obtained through a variety of methods, virtual assets included.
Concerns increased in the week prior that cryptocurrencies could be used as a conduit for transferring money in and out of Russia, so finance ministers of the European Union countries and other authorities decided to use a video link in order to address the issue. Many prominent crypto firms agreed to abide by the sanctions at the time, even though they were not on board with full bans of their services to Russians.
Russian consumers have been blocked by companies stretching from Revolut to PayPal and Google in the weeks following the initial Russian attack on Ukraine. The pushback from cryptocurrency exchanges reflects one of the crypto community’s core values: campaigning for the participation of all users in an open financial system.