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Cryptocurrency firms in the United Arab Emirates are getting flooded with requests to liquidate billions of dollars of digital assets as Russians seek a safe place to park their fortunes, Reuters reported, citing company executives and financial sources.
Some customers are seeking to convert their crypto into real estate, while others want hard currency so they can keep it elsewhere, the article said. The UAE has remained neutral on the issue of Russia’s military action in Ukraine and abstained from the United Nation’s Security Council vote to condemn Russia for the action.
In the past 10 days, one crypto firm has received lots of queries from Swiss brokers seeking to liquidate billions of dollars in bitcoin (BTC-USD) because their clients are worried that Switzerland will freeze their assets, one executive told Reuters. That person said one broker was looking to liquidate $6B of bitcoin (BTC-USD) so the client could send it to Australia.
Some bitcoin veterans are skeptical of the claims. Adam Back said he’s “calling a hard fake news on this one,” because Australia is “not a place to evade sanctions.”
And the requests to liquidate crypto may not actually lead to transactions. “This kinda feels like the 2018-2019 deluge of emails to OTC desks about whales wanting to sell 10-100K slugs of BTC,” said Meltem Demirors. “Will believe it when the ticket gets printed.”
In Friday trading, bitcoin (BTC-USD -0.8%) is relatively stable at $38.8K, ether (ETH-USD) -1.2% at $2.57K, Binance coin (BNB-USD), though, rises 1.1%.
Previously (March 7), Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) blocks 25K crypto wallets related to Russians involved in illicit activity
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