Crypto trading a risk to financial stability, opens door for countries to evade sanctions- IMF

Crypto trading a risk to financial stability, opens door for countries to evade sanctions: IMF

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned in its global financial stability report that a surge in crypto assets trading in emerging markets could pose a risk to the global financial system. Trading volumes in crypto assets soared especially after sanctions were imposed on Russia, it added. The report added that crypto trading could also be potentially used by sanctioned countries such as Russia to evade sanctions and monetise their energy resources by bitcoin mining. Policymakers around the world would thus need to stepin to ensure stability in the market and to fill the regulatory gaps “to ensure integrity and protect consumers in the fast-evolving world of crypto assets,” the IMF said.

The share of trading in crypto assets such as Tether, the largest stablecoin used to settle spot and derivative trades, against EM currencies has been rising since the pandemic began. More recently, tether volumes against Russian rouble and Ukrainian hryvnia spiked at the end of February ie the period after war between Moscow and Kyiv struck.

“Although a large part of this increase (in trading of crypto assets) is due to speculative investment activities by emerging market residents, a more structural shift toward crypto assets as a means of payment and/or store of value could pose significant challenges to policymakers,” the report said. The crypto ecosystem, through crypto exchanges and crypto asset providers, allows users to circumvent sanctions, avoid due diligence, and increase the anonymity of transactions, the report said.

Sanctioned countries like Russia could tap crypto mining to use energy resources

Moreover, sanctioned countries could also allocate more energy resources toward evading sanctions through mining. Though the share of mining in countries under sanctions and the overall size of mining revenues suggests that the magnitude of such flows is relatively contained, risks to financial integrity remain. For instance, the monthly average of all Bitcoin mining revenues last year was about $1.4 billion, of which Russian miners could have captured close to 11 percent, and Iranian miners, 3 percent.

“Mining for energy-intensive blockchains like Bitcoin can allow countries to monetize energy resources, some of which cannot be exported due to sanctions. The monetization happens directly on blockchains and outside the financial system where the sanctions are implemented,” IMF said.

The policymakers around the world need to fill the gaps in regulating crypto assets amid the rising risks of cryptoization and sanction evasion through the crypto ecosystem, IMF said. Regulators in the United States and United Kingdom, among others, have urged firms in their jurisdictions, including the crypto asset sector, to increase vigilance with regard to potential Russian sanction evasion attempts.