Kremlin stablecoin moves 6 billion dollars to avoid sanctions

Just as Bitcoin is searching for direction, crypto is finding global use at the same time. Just not the most ethical one. The Kremlin, which houses the Russian government, has found a solution to circumvent the global sanctions imposed on it since the war in Ukraine started. Thanks to a platform that is the successor to Garantex and a stablecoin it has developed itself, it can move billions of dollars from country to country with impunity.

Garantex and Telegram

On October 7, 2023, Hamas carried out a bloody terrorist attack in Israel, killing more than 1,300 civilians. Many wondered how Iran, Hamas’s financial backer, could have transferred the funds needed for the operation to Hamas. Apparently, this was done via the crypto platform Garantex, which allowed the transfer of $93 million in Bitcoin, Ether, and even Dogecoin. Calls for funding were found on Telegram, the originally Russian social media platform.

The EU is moving to sanction A7A5, a ruble-backed stablecoin tied to Russia’s Promsvyazbank.

New leaks confirm Crystal’s earlier findings that Grinex and Garantex are the same operation, deepening the network’s exposure to sanctioned entities.

Read the full story:… pic.twitter.com/MIUABUclxw

— Crystal Intelligence (@CrystalPlatform) October 9, 2025

Garantex was on a European Union sanctions list at the time, but thanks to a Kremlin approval, it continued to operate within Russian borders. Because cryptocurrencies can easily be moved anonymously, it was estimated that some $93 million of the attack’s financing came from Iran.

Grinex

By now, Garantex has been irrevocably closed, but its operations have been taken over by Grinex, another crypto platform operating from Kyrgyzstan. There, it receives funds from the Kremlin in A7A5, a stablecoin developed by the Russians to circumvent European sanctions. According to an investigation by the Financial Times, the Kremlin has already paid over €6 billion to foreign companies in this way for products it is normally prohibited from importing.

In our latest blog, we examine today’s sanctions by OFAC and look into A7A5, the Russian ruble-backed token, and Grinex, the Garantex successor. See how these entities operate within the Russian crypto economy and their connections to previously sanctioned exchange Garantex:… pic.twitter.com/F3eH4MDYS2

— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) August 14, 2025

So, crypto has found another global use case, although this time it’s not a very good one.