As protests rage in Belarus and Alexei Navalny remains in a coma, we
look at new developments in crypto across the former USSR.
Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law.
Editor’s note
The
political machinations of Eastern Europe have dominated recent
headlines. Protests unprecedented since the fall of the Soviet Union
have rocked Belarus for weeks. Outrage over the Aug. 8 election that has
seen challenger Svetlana Tikhanovskaya flee the country has threatened
the longtime dominion of Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, the
so-called “last dictator in Europe.”
Protestors are
calling the 80% win for Lukashenko a fraud. The regime has tried to
crack down with its traditional tactics of disinformation and police
violence, but resistance continues. As the EU prepares a sanctions
package, the world watches for the reaction of Russia, which has long
supported Lukashenko. But while Putin has hesitated to commit support to
Lukashenko’s crumbling regime, a new scandal is racking his own.
Aleksei
Navalny, the most visible political opposition to Putin left in the
country, fell ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow, necessitating an
emergency landing in Omsk. As of press time, Navalny remains in a coma,
with many believing him to have been poisoned by regime operatives. The
hospital hosting him is doing nothing to alleviate suspicion, initially
preventing his wife from getting to him and stonewalling work to
evacuate him to Germany.
Former members of the USSR have
long been powerhouses of blockchain development based on a combination
of strong technology education, murky business environments, and
political processes that oscillate between opaque and ominous. Use cases
for anonymity or immutability flourish where governments flout election
numbers or poison political opposition.
source link : https://cointelegraph.com/news/law-decoded-blockchains-and-the-eastern-bloc-august-1421
