News about finance, currency, securities

 US can punish Russia with cryptocurrency The US may find a way to restrict access to Russia's Bitcoin and Ethereum systems to avoid the country "dodging" sanctions. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (under the US Department of the Treasury) has the ability to handle cryptocurrency exchanges and other digital currency platforms that violate the ban on dealing with blacklisted Russian banks. . Marlon Pinto, director of the UK-based AnotherDay risk consulting firm, said that cryptocurrencies make up a larger part of Russia's financial system than most other countries. A Russian government report estimates that there are more than 12 million cryptocurrency wallets, where digital assets are stored, opened by Russian citizens with an amount of about 2 trillion rubles, or about 23.9 billion USD. . Besides, data for August 2021 from Cambridge University shows that Russia is the third country in terms of Bitcoin mining. According to analytics firm Elliptic, Iran - a countr...

 More and more European and American companies are leaving Russia Russia's opening of a military campaign in Ukraine is reversing the wave of foreign investment in the past 30 years. The number of companies announcing the termination of business relationships or re-evaluating their operations in Russia is increasing as many countries impose sanctions on Russia, close their airspace to Russian planes and remove some Russian banks from SWIFT. . Some companies say the financial and reputational risks are too great for them to continue operating here. The ruble on the morning of February 28 depreciated by more than 30% against the US dollar after Washington banned transactions with the Central Bank of Russia, limiting the country's ability to use foreign exchange reserves of $ 630 billion to protect the local currency. . For some companies, the withdrawal from Russia has ended lucrative investments over the past few decades. Energy companies have been pioneers in pouring money into...