Cryptocurrencies have gone through a week of high volatility, after much speculation and uncertainty was generated regarding decision-making by authorities, especially on the European continent and in the United States in relation to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. After a series of restrictions and commercial blockades imposed on the Russian country, Rusia saw cryptocurrency transactions as a solution. However, it seems that the European and North American authorities will not sit idly by.

Last week we saw huge volatility in the crypto asset market, after trading volumes of cryptocurrencies in Ukraine and Russia had big swings caused by various events.

First, at the beginning of the week, volumes in both countries reached their highest levels for several months. In Russia, both Russian citizens and institutions began to migrate their capital to these types of assets, after a series of blockades and bans by financial institutions and governments of various countries, seriously affecting the Russian traditional financial system and its economic activities. This brought with it other great consequences, among which the ruble’s fall to record lows against the US dollar stands out. However, both the European Union and the United States government would not allow Russia to evade such restrictions and bans by relying on the use of cryptocurrencies, so the member states of the European Union would take additional measures. It is said that the US government requested the blocking of crypto transactions generated by Russian accounts, while the European authorities would focus on generating mechanisms to prevent a significant increase in the volume of cryptocurrency transactions; Nevertheless; the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, was in favor of applying similar regulations than the ones proposed by the US government, in which companies that are dedicated to the issuance of crypto assets or that provide services related to them would not have clients in Russia.

Faced with these proposals and initiatives, various businessmen and influencers focused on the cryptocurrency sector; among them Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, spoke out against after qualifying them as unethical and harmful to the essence of cryptocurrencies. In an interview for Bloomberg, Zhao mentioned that Binance complies with the sanctions that limit the financial transactions of people in Russia, however, he would consider it unethical to extend the restrictions by freezing the accounts of all users in the region, since the general principles of crypto assets would be lost, in addition to the fact that a large part of the Russian population is not in favor of war and armed movements. The big dilemma is, how decentralized are cryptocurrencies if user accounts are frozen in Russia due to government decisions? In other news, the implementation of cryptocurrencies in Spain is beginning to generate new innovations, as it has been announced that a building in La Marina, Valencia would be tokenized. This would provide ownership through digital assets which will be stored in a digital wallet. Also, making it a fractioned asset would make it more accessible to many users. The world of crypto assets begins to enter the real estate sector, after the company, Rental.co, will be in charge of restoring said property. It is being said that it will be valued around 3.2 million euros. Bitcoin is trading above $38,700, after several days of high volatility. The formation of a range between $36,000 and $45,000 is apparently seen, so we need the price to breach that zone in order to determine the short-term direction of the market. BTC/USDT 1D (TradingView Chart). For its part, Ethereum behaves in a very similar way, trading above $2,600 within a range between $2,400 and $2,850. ETH/USDT 1D (TradingView Chart). There is no doubt that these have been tough days for the world and the situation looks set to spread more and more. However, for crypto investors it will be essential to be aware of all the impositions by the European and US governments, as well as the decisions taken by exchanges and institutions related to the world of cryptocurrencies. Without further ado, we wish you an amazing week.