BOCA RATON, Fla. : Communications from the cryptocurrency industry around sanctions on Russia have been counterproductive and do not reflect what the firms are actually doing, the head of crypto exchange FTX said.
"I'm very frustrated with the messaging that our industry has had on this," Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX, which was recently valued at $32 billion, told Reuters late Thursday. Democratic U.S. senators introduced a bill on Thursday that would enable the government to sanction foreign cryptocurrency firms doing business with sanctioned Russian entities and prevent them from transacting with U.S. customers.
FTX still allows non-sanctioned Russian users to trade, with anti-money laundering checks, and is in communication with the U.S. Treasury about what it is doing in Russia, said Bankman-Fried, a 30-year-old crypto billionaire.