Jesse Powell, CEO of crypto exchange Kraken, said that the platform would not freeze the accounts of clients based in Russia without a legal requirement to do so.

What Happened: In a series of tweets on Monday, Powell said that while he understands the rationale behind the request to freeze these accounts, the crypto exchange would not be barring its Russian users from trading.

“Besides, if we were going to voluntarily freeze financial accounts of residents of countries unjustly attacking and provoking violence around the world, step 1 would be to freeze all US accounts. As a practical matter, that's not really a viable business option for us,” said Powell.

The Kraken CEO’s comments were directed at a request from Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's vice prime minister and minister of digital transformation.

Fedorov called on all major crypto exchanges to block the wallet addresses of Russian users regardless of whether they are politicians or regular citizens.

So far, only one Ukraine-based digital asset startup has proceeded to cut all relationships with Russia and Belarus. DMarket announced earlier today that it had frozen accounts of all previously registered users from that area.

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, went on record to state that it has no plans of unilaterally freezing accounts in Russia.

Price Action:  Bitcoin is down 3.04% in the last 24 hours, trading at a price of $38,260. Ethereum was trading at $2,600, down 6.5% over the same period.