Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/9474563
UnionPay was widely touted as China’s rescue operation to Russia after Visa, Mastercard and American Express suspended operations in Russia over the war in Ukraine and SWIFT was blocked. It became one of the only methods Russians could use to make payments abroad.
Now UnionPay cards linked to the Huawei Pay service have stopped working in Russia, local news portal 66.ru reported on Tuesday, citing users who say they have been unable to make payments. The Moscow Times said that the restrictions may be the result of U.S. sanctions against Russia’s National Payment Card System (NSPK), which processes all UnionPay card transactions in the country.
On an entirely unrelated note, Bitcoin is apparently up 20% in the past two days.
Speculation maybe? I mean how would russians buy bitcoin? Nobody sane would accept rubles right?
Seems they can, at least right now. See tals post below:
googles
Rubles, Bitcoin
Deposit and withdrawal of cash rubles without commission
Withdrawal by Sberbank, Tinkoff, Alfa-Bank cards
Someone appears to. You’d think that the US wouldn’t like that much.
googles
Ah.
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0701
Treasury Sanctions Russia-Based Hydra, World’s Largest Darknet Market, and Ransomware-Enabling Virtual Currency Exchange Garantex
Treasury is committed to taking action against actors that, like Hydra and Garantex, willfully disregard anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) obligations and allow their systems to be abused by illicit actors. Wanton disregard for regulations and compliance by persons that run virtual currency exchanges will be rigorously investigated, and where appropriate, perpetrators will be held accountable.
Garantex is being designated today pursuant to E.O. 14024 for operating or having operated in the financial services sector of the Russian Federation economy.
Today’s action also reinforces OFAC’s recent public guidance to further cut off avenues for potential sanctions evasion by Russia, in support of the G7 leaders’ commitment to maintain the effectiveness of economic measures.
Sounds like they’ve been in hot water since early 2022.
No one in the sane world… so plenty of coiners will take it!
tether printer does what is usual in such cases
I’m kind of glad I’m not you. If I had bought 3btc for cheap back in the day I would be really tempted to sell them now and buy back later at a discount. It’s probably good for my mental health that I’m only investing in index funds so I don’t need to speculate with this.
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So China, maybe since reliant on exports, is not interested in escalation of that conflict.
Besides the title statement, China hasn’t done anything. In the article text, they get more into detail and it’s the Western sanctions leading to individual companies stopping their services for Russians. Companies don’t want to get dragged into Western sanctions themselves, so they stop their business with/in Russia.
Article quotes:
News portal 66.ru reported that while payment by physical UnionPay cards appears to work as usual, the same cards linked to the Huawei Pay service are refused in Russia.
The decision was made by Chinese banks Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Bank of China due to the “risks of secondary sanctions” from the United States,
