Bitcoin in war: U.S. to impose sanctions on cryptocurrencies?

The United States could impose sanctions on cryptocurrencies in a bid to put pressure on Russia as the country might adopt digital assets to evade sanctions from multiple nations.

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The Department of Justice announced early Wednesday a new task force broadly designed to enforce sanctions. As part of that, it will target efforts to use cryptocurrency to evade U.S. sanctions, launder proceeds of foreign corruption or evade U.S. responses to Russian military aggression.

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Typically, the way sanctions work is that a government generates a list of the individuals and companies that must be avoided, and those doing business with these banned entities are subject to heavy fines.

However, it is to be noted that digital currencies are resistant because there is no central authority to block transactions.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, stats from crypto data provider Kaiko show that transactions on centralized bitcoin exchanges in both the Russian ruble and the Ukrainian hryvnia have surged to their highest levels in months.