Investors in Ukraine unable to buy BTC with hryvnia at nation’s largest savings bank

Investors in Ukraine were unable to buy Bitcoin from the nation’s largest savings bank called PrivatBank. This report comes after the President of the nation, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, officially signed the regulatory framework for these blockchain-based assets and legalized cryptocurrencies. 

Moreover, it seems that although the nation has been gaining huge advantage from donations received in terms of crypto, the nation’s largest savings bank has been following some other tune as reported by Forklog. The report said that a number of customers of the bank haven’t been able to buy Bitcoin with the nation’s national currency, the hryvnia (UAH).

PrivatBank restrictions comes from government of Ukraine

It is also important to note that a spokesperson from PrivatBank talked revealed that the order comes directly from the National Bank of Ukraine and furthermore, these restrictions will only apply during the current period of martial law in the country following the Ukraine-Russia war. 

Another notable fact is that the bank’s official statement says that they are providing credit holidays and increasing withdrawal limits during this time of war in order to help citizens get access to better services. However, multiple reports claim that this is not the case as Ukraine continues its war with Putin-led Russia. 

Binance concludes business

On the other hand, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has asked the people of Ukraine to use their peer-to-peer services as the banks are not allowing the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. 

“We would like to inform you that PrivatBank will not support operations with UAH on all crypto exchanges with no exception starting from March 2022,” Binance Ukraine, the Ukrainian arm of the world’s biggest crypto exchange, said in a post on Facebook. 

Binance hinted on the fact that other cryptocurrency exchanges might soon follow the same method and ban users from buying and selling crypto via exchanges.