The entire cryptocurrency industry suffered tremendously throughout the year 2022. It was a painful situation that the cryptocurrency industry had to go through.
It was not just the crypto industry that was badly impacted in the year 2022 even the global economy suffered a major downfall in the respective year.
The Russian Crypto Industry was hammered
While the entire world and the cryptocurrency industry suffered, it was Russia and its crypto industry that faced the worst situation.
Due to the war with Ukraine, the European Union has continued bombarding Russia with sanctions. So far, the west has implemented multiple sanctions on Russia since the country Invaded Ukraine.
The west has launched multiple waves of sanctions against Russia. In the eighth wave, the west prohibited cryptocurrency exchanges from providing services to Russian crypto users.
It seems that people have found ways to circumvent prohibitions imposed by the west over the Russian crypto community.
Readymade Crypto Exchange Accounts for Russians
With the Russian sanctions being imposed, the Russians are gaining access to more and more readymade accounts.
These accounts are for cryptocurrency exchanges that are set up by third parties and sold to residents in Russia.
It is worth mentioning that this is not something new that has come into trend recently. This phenomenon has been around for a while and most of the instances of this phenomenon are illicit activities.
Such accounts are set up and used by people who aim to carry out money laundering activities. Most of the time, it is the fraudsters who set up such accounts with fake and false identity details to cover their trace.
Lately, the same phenomenon has become trendy in Russia but it is not for the purpose of money laundering or fraud. Instead, the practice is to offer exchange accounts to Russian residents.
The people in Russia interested to invest in cryptocurrencies can acquire such accounts and use them for trading and exchange-related purposes.
Accounts for Russian Residents
As per the sources, Russian residents have been gaining access to these accounts despite the dangers and the risks they have to offer.
The major concern with these accounts is that the people who create the actual accounts can always take control back of these accounts.
They add all the necessary details while setting up the accounts so they know how to take control back of these accounts whenever they want.
The potential risk has been shared by Kommersant, a major reporting firm based in Russia. The catchiest aspect of these accounts is that these accounts are very inexpensive to purchase.
There is a great supply of these accounts on the darknet markets. Since the beginning of 2022, the demand and sales for these accounts have more than doubled in the darknet markets.
The data pertaining to the claim has been gathered and shared by Positive Technologies. It is an analysis group that focuses on security threats.
An analyst from an intelligence firm based in Russia has shared useful information pertaining to the rising number of ads for verified wallets.
According to the analyst, as of now, there were almost 400 verified ads for various cryptocurrency exchanges offering verified wallets that are readymade.
The information shared has also revealed that the people offering these accounts are only offering them for $50.
As for the accounts that are fully registered, the users wanting to buy these accounts are required to pay up to $300.
Categories of Users Buying the Accounts
Further study has shown that two kinds of people are reportedly involved in the purchase of these accounts.
The first group includes people that are buying these accounts for the sake of running their day-to-day crypto trading and exchanging activities.
The other group includes those who have been using cryptocurrencies for the purpose of money laundering and illicit activities.