Wealthy Russians are buying up property in Dubai, while others want to draw cash to invest it elsewhere.
These requests are believed to be attempts at avoiding ongoing sanctions resulting from the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
One crypto firm said they received a request from a Swiss broker to sell $6 billion worth of bitcoin.
Russian Billionaires are buying up property in the United Arab Emirates (UAE (https://beincrypto.com/russian-elite-liquidate-crypto-in-dubai/)), while others want to draw cash to invest it elsewhere. One crypto firm has been inundated with requests from Swiss brokers to liquidate holdings worth $2 billion and above.
“We’ve had like five or six in the past two weeks. None of them have come off yet – they’ve sort of fallen over at the last minute, which is not rare, but we’ve never had this much interest,” said an executive, adding that they had one request from a Swiss broker to sell 125,000 bitcoin ($6 billion USD) for a client.
Switzerland’s economic affairs secretariat (SECO) said that the crypto assets are subject to the same sanctions and restrictions placed on the other assets owned by sanctioned individuals. Dubai’s current stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which began on Feb. 24, 2022, is a neutral one, indicating to the Russians that their money is safe in Dubai, an attractive location for the super-rich.
A real-estate broker said, “we’ve been seeing a lot of Russians and even Belarusians coming to Dubai and bringing whatever they can bring, even in crypto.”