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A ruble-backed stablecoin tied to a sanctioned Russian defense bank somehow ended up sponsoring Singapore’s biggest crypto event, creating a compliance headache that exposed how easily financial sanctions blur across jurisdictions.
On Friday morning, former White House Crypto Policy Director Bo Hines took to the stage at Token2049 to extol the virtues of Tether – his new employer – and its Genius-act compliant stablecoin USAT. A guarantor of U.S. dollar hegemony, which the world seems to want, is how he described it.
A few hours later, Oleg Ogienko, A7A5's director for regulatory and overseas affairs, a ruble-backed stablecoin issuer targeted by authorities worldwide took to the stage with a very different message.
While the presence of Ogienko and the speech he gave made for a more interesting conference, a big question on everyone's mind is how his sanctioned company was able to pay for sponsorship.
A7A5, a ruble-backed stablecoin issued by Old Vector and used on the A7 LLC payments platform – which is designed to assist businesses in-country to bypass sanctions – is backed by Russia’s state-owned Promsvyazbank (PSB), a financial institution sanctioned by the U.S. and U.K and many other jurisdictions around the world for its role in financing Russia’s defense sector.
Shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Singapore broke from its decades‑old policy of neutrality and joined the West in sanctioning key Russian banks and defense‑linked entities, including state‑owned Promsvyazbank (PSB), a move that also set it apart from its ASEAN neighbours, who avoided such measures.
On March 14, 2023, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) issued notice SNR-N01 which prohibits financial entities in Singapore from interacting with major banks in Russia including Promsvyazbank (PSB) – where A7A5's reserves are kept.
Effectively, this would bar any MAS-regulated institutions and crypto service providers from facilitating or processing any transactions, sponsorships, or partnerships involving A7A5 or other PSB-backed digital assets.
But, Token2049 is organized by Hong Kong-registered BOB Group. Hong Kong, as part of China, follows Beijing's lead on sanctions, which currently maintains trade and financial ties with Russia despite Western restrictions.
Token2049 organizers did not respond to repeated requests for comment. MAS did not provide a response by press time.
While the BOB Group would be in compliance with local law in Hong Kong, other sponsors became nervous about having their brands associated with A7A5. A number of companies that spoke to CoinDesk called the presence of the stablecoin issuer a "compliance nightmare" while another said they had a "heart attack" seeing them on the site.
BOB seemed to have gotten the message, and scrubbed references to A7A5 from the sponsor list, though the Internet Archive still has it.
A7A5, for its part, still proudly lists itself as a conference sponsor on social media, including of the official Token2049 massage zone, which has, as it says, a lounge "where deals are closed while you unwind."
Market Movement
BTC: Bitcoin surged to a record high above $125,000, up 11% for the week, as massive inflows into U.S. spot ETFs and heightened safe-haven demand amid the U.S. government shutdown and global liquidity expectations fueled buying.
ETH: Ethereum is trading around $4,500 and is gaining attention ahead of December’s Fusaka upgrade, which VanEck says will cut rollup costs through PeerDAS, enhance scaling efficiency, and strengthen ETH’s role as the monetary backbone of the network rather than just a fee-generating asset.
Gold: Gold continues to surge, trading above $ 3,880, as investors seek safe-haven assets amid a prolonged U.S. government shutdown.
Nikkei 225: Japan’s Nikkei 225 surged over 4% to a record high after the ruling LDP chose Sanae Takaichi as its new leader, with investors betting her pro-growth “high-pressure” economic stance will keep the BOJ’s policies accommodative.
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