Sanctions-dodgers hoping to use crypto to evade detection are likely to be disappointed

TO THEIR CHAMPIONS, cryptocurrencies are supposed to be a libertarian Utopia. Because tokens are created and moved by loose, of individual computers based in dozens of countries, cross-border transactions can be quick and in theory are free from control by intermediaries, such as banks, which can be regulated by national governments. Critics of crypto-finance have long looked askance at the same system. To statists, it represents the tyranny of techno-anarchy.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the West’s subsequent sanctions on Russian banks, companies and elites appears to turn on its head the debate about whom crypto helps and hurts. Though politicians and regulators in America and Europe at first feared that people and entities hit with would use cryptocurrencies to dodge the restrictions, little evidence of such activity has materialised. Instead, crypto institutions appear to be under the thumb of governments, too. And there has been a huge surge in crypto donations to help the government in Ukraine.