According to BlockBeats news on August 15, CoinDesk reported that the United States imposed blacklist sanctions on the ruble stablecoin A7A5 and the now-defunct Russian cryptocurrency trading platform Garantex. Garantex was shut down after handling over $100 million in illegal transactions and subsequently rebranded as Grinex to continue operations. The stablecoin A7A5 is supported by Russian institutions and is used to evade international sanctions, with a daily trading volume of $1 billion.
In March, the police of the United States, Germany, and Finland collaborated to seal Garantex's website domain and freeze assets worth $26 million. Key executives of Garantex, Sergey Mendeleev, Aleksandr Mira Serda, and Pavel Karavatsky, as well as Mendeleev's company InDeFi Bank and Exved, were also included in the sanctions list for helping sanctioned Russian companies conduct transactions through cryptocurrency channels. A report by blockchain analysis firm Elliptic indicated that the ruble stablecoin A7A5 supported a 'sanctions evasion scheme' that allowed Russian companies to bypass the traditional banking system for cross-border payment settlements.