Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic has published a report highlighting that several crypto exchanges connected to Russia are helping users move money in ways that avoid Western financial restrictions.
Five crypto trading platforms have been found to be operating without the conventional banking system regulation, and large crypto transactions are still taking place despite the sanctions being in place, per the report.
Most of these transactions are not sanctioned, making it even more difficult for the regulators to enforce the sanctions.
The study comes at a time when European policymakers are considering tougher regulations, including a possible blanket ban on crypto transactions with Russia.
Officials worry that as older sanctioned platforms are shut down, new exchanges are quickly emerging to fill the gap, making it harder to fully enforce financial restrictions through the crypto market.
Who all are involved?
Elliptic found that among the crypto exchanges it studied, only the peer-to-peer platform Bitpapa is currently under U.S. sanctions.
The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Bitpapa in March 2024 for allegedly facilitating users to circumvent financial restrictions.
According to the report, approximately 9.7 percent of Bitpapa’s outgoing transactions were linked to sanctioned entities, and the exchange also tended to change wallet addresses to facilitate tracking.
Elliptic also identified ABCeX, an unsanctioned exchange operating from Moscow’s Federation Tower, previously home to the now-seized Garantex exchange. The firm estimates ABCeX has processed at least $11 billion in crypto transactions, with large fund flows linked to both Garantex and another platform, Aifory Pro.
Elliptic’s report also flagged Exmo, which claimed it exited Russia after selling its regional business in 2022, but analysis suggests ongoing operational links through shared custody systems and pooled wallets.
The company found more than $19.5 million of transactions between Exmo and the sanctioned exchanges. These exchanges included Garantex, Grinex, and even Chatex.
In another case, a crypto platform named Rapira, which is registered in Georgia but operates from Moscow, transferred over $72 million to the sanctioned exchange Grinex.
The firm’s office was later raided by Russian law enforcement in late 2025 for allegedly transferring funds to Dubai.
Meanwhile, Aifory Pro runs cash-to-crypto services across Moscow, Dubai and Turkey, offering USDT-funded virtual cards and showing transaction links to Iran’s Abantether exchange.
Are enforcement actions not enough?
Researchers say the findings show that enforcement actions often redirect crypto activity instead of stopping it completely.
After the authorities shut down the cryptocurrency exchange Garantex, trading volumes started to move to other exchanges. Illegal crypto activity hit an all-time high in the entire 2025, showing how hard it is for regulators around the world to keep up with scammers and fraudsters.
Chainalysis, a company that analyzes blockchains, said that illegal cryptocurrency activity was worth about $154 billion. TRM Labs said it was worth a little more, at $158 billion.
At the same time, Russia’s crypto-mining industry kept growing, even though the rest of the world was paying a lot of attention to it.
BitRiver and Intelion, the two biggest mining companies, made about $200 million in sales. The massive revenue shows that large-scale mining is still possible, even though there are more and more rules and political problems.