Major crypto exchanges won't honor Ukraine request to block Russian accounts

After Ukraine Vice Prime Minister asked all major crypto exchanges to block addresses of Russian users, the exchanges are refusing, Vice's Motherboard reported. A spokesperson for Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) told Motherboard that the U.S.-based exchange won't comply with the request, saying the ban would hurt "economic freedom" and would harm average Russians. It is, however, complying with sanctions that are in place. "At this time, we will not institute a blanket ban of all Coinbase transactions involving Russian addresses," the spokesperson said in an email to Motherboard. Binance told CNBC that it won't "unilaterally freeze millions of innocent users' accounts." Kraken CEO Jesse Powell posted on Twitter that it "cannot freeze the accounts of our Russian clients without a legal requirement to do so," but added, "Russians should be aware that such a requirement could be imminent. Earlier, Bitcoin (BTC-USD) breaks over $41K as ruble-denominated bitcoin volume surges