Latest news with #Garantex
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Russia Eyes National Stablecoin After $27M in USDT Frozen Over Sanctions Violation
Russian officials are reconsidering the country's reliance on foreign-issued stablecoins after wallets linked to the sanctioned crypto exchange Garantex were frozen. Osman Kabaloev, deputy director of the Finance Ministry's financial policy department, said the incident demonstrated the risks of using foreign stablecoins and reinforced the case for developing a Russian alternative. He suggested that a domestically issued stablecoin, potentially pegged to a currency other than the U.S. dollar, could help Russia avoid similar vulnerabilities in the future. Tether, a major stablecoin issuer, froze $27 million in USDT linked to Garantex on March 6. The action was part of a coordinated effort involving the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as authorities in Germany and Finland. U.S. officials said Garantex had facilitated more than $96 billion in illicit transactions since its founding in 2019. The exchange, which had already been under U.S. sanctions since 2022 for money laundering, was forced to suspend operations, including withdrawals. A blockchain analytics firm based in Switzerland reported that Garantex has re-emerged under a new name, transferring funds laundered in ruble-backed stablecoins to a different platform. The event has drawn attention to how stablecoins are being used for cross-border transactions in Russia, especially under Western sanctions. Before the freeze, stablecoins like USDT were widely used by Russian companies for international trade due to limited access to global financial systems. While the Central Bank of Russia remains opposed to crypto use within the domestic economy, its governor, Elvira Nabiullina, confirmed that crypto-based payments are being tested for international transactions under an experimental legal framework. These trials allow companies to bypass restrictions that have become more prominent since 2022. The government is now considering regulatory reforms, including amendments to the criminal procedure code that would formally recognize digital assets as property. In addition, Evgeny Masharov of the Russian Civic Chamber proposed creating a state-run crypto fund composed of digital assets seized in criminal investigations. This shift in strategy comes amid a broader global rise in stablecoin usage. A recent report by Artemis and Dune found that active stablecoin wallets have increased by over 50% in the past year. The stablecoin market cap has exceeded $200 billion in 2025, and annual transaction volume hit $27.6 trillion in 2024, surpassing that of Visa and Mastercard combined. Russian officials see these developments as both a challenge and an opportunity. The freezing of Garantex-linked assets has added urgency to discussions around building domestic tools for digital finance that can operate outside the control of foreign institutions. Sign in to access your portfolio
Reuters
16-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Russia should have own stablecoins, finance ministry official says
MOSCOW, April 16 (Reuters) - Russia should develop its own stablecoins pegged to other currencies after Russia-linked digital wallets holding the popular USDT stablecoin were blocked last month, a senior Finance Ministry official said on Wednesday. Dollar-pegged stablecoins, which are a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value, have ballooned in recent years as they helped to move funds between different cryptocurrencies or into cash. Russian regulators have allowed the experimental use of cryptocurrencies in international payments, which have become more difficult due to Western sanctions. Before the blockage, USDT was popular among Russian firms as a payment tool. "The recent blockage makes us think that we need to consider creating internal tools similar to USDT, possibly pegged to other currencies," the deputy head of the ministry's financial policy department, Osman Kabaloev, said. Russian crypto exchange Garantex said on March 6 that USDT creator Tether had blocked digital wallets on its platform holding more than 2.5 billion roubles ($30.12 million), forcing it to suspend operations days after coming under EU sanctions. The head of Russia's central bank Elvira Nabiullina, who opposes the use of cryptocurrencies in domestic payments, said that Russian firms are actively testing international cryptocurrency payments as part of the experiment. ($1 = 82.9955 roubles)
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
1 in 5 Cross-Chain Crypto Investigations Involve More Than 10 Blockchains, Elliptic Finds
Crypto criminals are taking increasing pains to evade detection, moving assets between a multitude of blockchain ecosystems in an effort to throw investigators off their trail. A full 20% of complex cross-chain investigations now span more than 10 different blockchains, according to new data from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic. Elliptic found that a third of complex cross-chain investigations involved four or more blockchains, and 27% involved more than five. Jackson Hull, Elliptic's chief technology officer, told CoinDesk that though cross-chain crime has existed as long as there have been multiple blockchains, the volume of cross-chain crime has increased 'pretty dramatically' over the last five years as the cost of switching ecosystems has gone down and the number of options to switch to has gone up. Though there are plenty of non-criminal reasons why someone would want to move assets between crypto ecosystems, Hull said that it's also a very common obfuscation tactic for hackers and other criminals who want to launder money and cover their tracks. Hull said that Elliptic has recently expanded its coverage to support 50 blockchains, meaning that investigators who use Elliptic's software are able to easily trace funds that move between any of the covered blockchains, or pass through any of the '300-plus' bridges Elliptic's software supports. Hull added that Elliptic is able to add a new blockchain to its coverage in as little as three weeks. 'The most important, risky, high-stakes investigations are the ones where the [bad] actor is trying to launder or hide or obfuscate the funds so they pop more and more across these blockchains,' Hull said. 'So that's really what drives it.' Elliptic aided U.S. law enforcement in their recent takedown of sanctioned Russian crypto exchange Garantex, which was popular with ransomware gangs and Russian oligarchs looking to evade sanctions. Following the takedown, the exchange has attempted to rebrand as Grinex.
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Shuttered Russian Crypto Exchange Garantex Rebrands as Grinex, Global Ledger Finds
Less than two weeks after it was taken down by international law enforcement authorities, Garantex — a Russian crypto exchange popular with ransomware gangs and sanctions-evading oligarchs — has allegedly already risen from the ashes, rebranding itself as Grinex. According to a new report from Swiss blockchain analytics firm Global Ledger, a slew of on and off-chain data indicates that Grinex is a direct successor to Garantex. Some liquidity from Garantex, including all of Garantex's holdings of a ruble-backed stablecoin called A7A5, has already been moved to Grinex-controlled wallets. Global Ledger CEO Lex Fisun told CoinDesk that, in addition to on-chain data connecting Garantex to Grinex, there have been numerous off-chain indications that the two exchanges are intimately connected. Fisun pointed to the rapid growth of Grinex, which he said had surpassed $40 million in volume in just two weeks, as well as a host of social media ties between the two exchanges. Though other major blockchain analytics companies, including TRM Labs and Chainalysis, have yet to confirm Global Ledger's findings, Chainalysis' Head of National Security Intelligence Andrew Fierman told CoinDesk that he had seen several indicators that Grinex was likely to be the rebrand of Garantex. Fierman pointed to a recent Telegram comment from Sergey Mendeleev, one of the original founders of Garantex, announcing the creation of Grinex and claiming any similarities between the two exchanges were random — followed by two crying laughing emojis. Both Fierman and Fisun told CoinDesk that there were numerous reports of Garantex users going to Garantex's in-person offices in Europe and the Middle East and transferring their crypto from Garantex to Grinex. Both also pointed out the similarities in the two platforms' user interfaces. Though the evidence is certainly compelling, Fierman said that until Chainalysis completes its review of Grinex's infrastructure, it cannot definitively validate the accuracy of Global Ledger's report. But, if Grinex is, in fact, a rebrand of Garantex, it wouldn't be the first time that a sanctioned exchange remade itself after a shutdown. In 2017, Russian crypto exchange BTC-E was taken down by American law enforcement, and subsequently rebranded as WEX. WEX didn't last long though — it shuttered a year later due to internal conflict and in-fighting among its remaining leadership. Similarly, sanctioned Russian exchange Suex rebranded as Chatex, and was subsequently sanctioned again. The trouble with sanctions The fast revival of Garantex demonstrates the challenge of sanctions, especially against criminal operations like non-compliant exchanges, darknet marketplaces and ransomware gangs that can simply morph to avoid detection. 'Sanctions evasion is going to happen,' Fierson said. 'Because if you're sanctioned, you aren't just going to accept that you can no longer conduct any financial transactions. You are going to look to avoid detection, however that may be, whether it be through creating shell companies, creating new crypto wallets — and the larger the operation, and the more prominent, the more technically advanced you'd have to be to actually make it work.' Feirson said this problem isn't unique to crypto, but crypto-related sanctions offer law enforcement a unique opportunity to follow the money after sanctions are put in place. 'The unique aspect to the blockchain is that it's transparent and immutable, and so what happens when a company gets shut down is a lot more examined,' Fierson said. 'There's a lot more to examine on-chain. Garantex gets shut down, their Tether holdings get seized, but that doesn't stop them from moving other assets. There's opportunity to monitor what happens to those funds post-official shutdown.' A hydra-like network of potential successors Whether Grinex is Garantex 2.0 or not, there are a number of other non-compliant Russian crypto exchanges eager and willing to take its place. Ari Redbord, global head of policy and government affairs at TRM Labs, told CoinDesk that it was simply 'too early' to definitively assess the relationship between Grinex and Garantex. 'That said, it is clear that other high-risk non-compliant exchanges will try to fill the illicit finance void left by Garantex,' he added. A recent client report from TRM Labs named several possible successors, including high-risk Russian exchanges ABCEX and Keine-Exchange. Garantex take down Garantex was dismantled by international law enforcement from the U.S., Germany and Finland in a joint operation earlier this month, which seized its domain and servers. The U.S. Treasury's Department of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) first sanctioned the exchange in 2022, accusing it of knowingly facilitating money laundering for ransomware gangs like Black Basta and Conti, as well as darknet markets like Hydra. According to court documents, Garantex's clientele also included North Korea's state-sanctioned hacking squad The Lazarus Group, which was behind the recent $1.4 billion Bybit hack, as well as Russian oligarchs who used the service to evade sanctions after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Two of Garantex's operators, Lithuanian national and Russian resident Aleksej Besciokov and Russian citizen and United Arab Emirates resident Aleksandr Mira Serda have been charged with money laundering conspiracy in connection with their work with Garantex. Besciokov was arrested while vacationing with his family in India earlier this month, and is expected to be extradited to the U.S. to face charges.
Zawya
14-03-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Russia leans on cryptocurrencies for oil trade, sources say
Russia is using cryptocurrencies in its oil trade with China and India to skirt Western sanctions, according to four sources with direct knowledge of the matter. While Russia has publicly encouraged the use of crypto and last summer passed a law to allow digital currency payments in international trade, its use in the country's oil trade has not previously been reported. Some Russian oil companies are using bitcoin, ether and stablecoins such as Tether to smooth the conversion of Chinese yuan and Indian rupees to Russian roubles, the sources said, adding that it is a small but growing part of Russia's overall oil trade, which according to the International Energy Agency was worth $192 billion last year. All the sources declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter. Cryptocurrencies have already helped enable countries under U.S. sanctions such as Iran and Venezuela to keep their economies running while avoiding use of the dollar, the preferred currency for transactions in the global oil market. Russia's move comes after Venezuela accelerated its use of digital currency in crude and fuel exports after Washington reimposed sanctions. Russia has set up a variety of systems and USDT (Tether) is just one of them, said a fifth source, a researcher at an investigations firm which tracks the use of cryptocurrencies for sanctions circumvention, who asked not to be named because of a non-disclosure agreement. The Russian central bank did not respond to a request for comment. It said last year that delays in payments due to sanctions had become a major challenge for the Russian economy. U.S. President Donald Trump is seeking to improve relations with Russia as he pushes for an end to the war in Ukraine, but whether sanctions will be lifted remains unclear. Reuters reported that the White House was drafting options for sanctions relief, but Trump posted on March 7 that he is strongly considering more sanctions on Russia. Crypto would likely continue to be used in Russian oil trading, one of the four sources said, even if sanctions are lifted and the dollar can be used again. It is a convenient tool and helps run operations faster, they added. In an example of how the trade works, a Chinese buyer of Russian oil pays a trading company acting as a middleman in yuan into an offshore account, two of the sources with knowledge of the transactions said. The middleman converts this into crypto and transfers it to another account and from there, it is sent to a third account in Russia and converted to roubles, they said. For one Russian oil trader's sales to China, crypto transactions are in the tens of millions of dollars per month, according to one of the sources who is familiar with the trader's operations. Traditional currencies still account for the bulk of Russia's oil transactions, analysts said, with other workarounds including the use of the UAE dirham, for example. One Russian crypto exchange, Garantex, was placed under U.S. sanctions in 2022 and by the European Union last month. The platform suspended services last week after Tether blocked digital wallets on its platform. Cryptocurrencies are one of multiple ways of getting around payment issues, according to one of the sources, who advises the Kremlin. Analysis by the UK's Royal United Services Institute and the Centre for Information Resilience and also supports that view. (Reporting by Anna Hirtenstein and Aizhu Chen, editing by Alex Lawler, Dmitry Zhdannikov and Kirsten Donovan)
