Crypto exchange HTX rejected British claims that it helped Russia’s “illicit financial infrastructure” used to move funds and sustain the country’s war in Ukraine, saying it rejected a listing application from the A7A5 ruble stablecoin.
“A7A5 attempted to list their stablecoin. However, following our rigorous internal due diligence and compliance review processes, their application was explicitly rejected,” a spokesperson for HTX told CoinDesk.
The token’s issuer, A7 LLC, is already sanctioned by many Western governments.
In a sanctions memo issued Tuesday, the State Department did not provide specific evidence of any HTX-A7A5 collaboration. The ministry said it had “reasonable grounds to suspect” that HTX was assisting A7, which Britain says “does business in a sector of strategic importance to the government of Russia.”
“We approached all the leading CEXs several months ago to list A7A5, including HTX,” A7A5 CEO Oleg Ogienko told CoinDesk, using crypto terminology for centralized exchanges. “But everyone rejected our application almost immediately because they are afraid of secondary sanctions.”
Ogienko said he is open to working with centralized exchanges, and HTX’s refusal to list the Russian stablecoin is “bad for them.”
“Now we don’t need their listing because our business model runs on DeFi infrastructure,” he told CoinDesk. “Nevertheless, we are open to interaction with CEXs if they want to increase their real trading volume and attract good clients.”
In an interview with CoinDesk at the Consensus Hong Kong conference earlier this year, Ogienko said he attended to meet with projects and protocols to discuss cooperation and business development.
Ogienko said the A7A5 fully complies with Kyrgyz and Russian regulations and the principles set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which tackles money laundering and terrorist financing and proliferation worldwide.
“We are not breaking any law,” he said.
