Opinion by: Mark Laurie

If crypto did offer a potential loophole, we could expect to see Russia doing its darndest to drive through it. But thus far we have seen no signs of any concerted Russian effort – governmental or non-governmental – to boost crypto liquidity.

Instead, Russia President Vladimir Putin seems to be putting all his efforts into building alternative financial rails to counter the dollar-based SWIFT financial communications system. This includes Russia’s SWIFT competitor SPFS (System for Transfer of Financial Messages) and its Visa/Mastercard competitor, MIR payments.

Moscow has heavily promoted SPFS to key trade partners that are also Western allies, such as India, Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Some two dozen banks from nearly a dozen countries have signed onto SPFS, including India, Turkey, Iran, China, Germany, Armenia and Switzerland.

Meanwhile, five Turkish banks adopted MIR in July and Iran is in advanced talks to join the network. India, Cuba and Sri Lanka have also expressed interest in joining Mir.

Putin’s sanctions response indicates that he and his cronies view traditional financial tools as more porous than crypto. The Russian president seems to believe that building a traditional, if non-western, financial network offers a better way to evade sanctions than crypto.

Read full report: https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/09/19/why-russia-isnt-relying-on-crypto-to-evade-sanctions/?outputType=amp