Russian Crypto Miner Bitriver To Sue US Authorities For Sanctions

Russian crypto miner Bitriver will sue the US Authorities for the imposed sanctions, insisting that it didn’t help the government of Russia to bypass international sanctions so let’s read more today in our latest cryptocurrency news.

Bitriver is the largest data center services provider in Russia and will now sue the US authorities and the US Treasury Department especially for adding the company to the sanction list last month. The company accused the US of breaching WTO rules via the act of promoting unfair competition and lobbying for the US mining industry. According to its press release, Bitriver argued that the 100% private company has no affiliation with the Russian governemnt and claimed the innocence of helping the regime bypass the sanctions. It stated that the imposed sanction caused direct reputational damage to the operations.

The Treasury Department announced sanctions against Bitriver and banned it from having business relations with US citizens. The authority also said that Russia has major comparative advantages in the crypto mining sector and express concerns that the individuals or companies could use crypto to evade sanctions. The Russian crypto miner BitRiver refuted such a point in the press release and noted that it always planned to corporate governance, complying with laws in various jurisdictions. The company takes pride in strict AML/KYC compliance and touted its history of operating in Russia hasn’t caused major raised eyebrows from watchdogs.

BitRiver attributed the Treasury Department’s sanction to the intention of protecting local companies. The mining giant also called the action by US authorities irresponsible, claiming that neither the legal framework nor reasoning could back up such an act. Despite the sanction that could harm the busienss, BitRiver reserve that the facility continued to operate normally and also communicate with oversea clients:

“At present, all enterprises, production sites, and offices of BitRiver in Russia are operating as usual. The company continues to provide services to international clients who have confirmed their further cooperation and these are the majority.”

A day before the US authority imposed sanctions on BitRiver, the IMF warned that Russia could use crypto and boost their mining industry to evade repercussions so the global authority also noted:

 “mining for energy-intensive blockchains like Bitcoin can allow countries to monetize energy resources, some of which cannot be exported due to sanctions.”

The crypto industry tended to believe otherwise and saw the use of digital assets like BTC to evade sanctions as a myth. The Binance CEO said that nobody smart will choose crypto to do that because it is traceable and governments are amping their tracking tools.