As for concerns that crypto transactions can easily evade sanctions due to the opaqueness of the crypto world, Neeraj Agrawal, a general partner at Battery Ventures, points out that the U.S. Treasury has that covered.

Treasury dept knows there isn’t a realistic risk that Russia could use cryptocurrency to evade sanctions at a meaningful scale

We’re talking about multiple orders of magnitude larger flows of money than would be possible to conceal on a public ledger https://t.co/XnEHMbIcrm pic.twitter.com/3Bppmv2IEr

— Neeraj K. Agrawal (@NeerajKA) February 26, 2022

All three major U.S. stock indexes closed lower on Tuesday. The Nasdaq closed down 1.5%, the S&P 500 closed down 1.55% and the Dow Jones industrials closed down 1.76%. Energy stocks posted the day’s only gain, up 1.0% as West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude settled at $103.41 a barrel, up about 8.3% for the day. In early trading Wednesday, WTI traded up another 5.8% at $109.51. Brent crude settled at $104.97 Tuesday and traded up more than 6% early in the morning at $111.42.

The 10-year U.S. Treasury note settled at 1.725% on Tuesday, down nearly 10 basis points, and the two-year note closed down nearly nine basis points at $1.349. The 10-year/two-year yield curve widened from 0.39 to 0.41.

Gold settled at $1,943.80 an ounce on Tuesday and traded down by about 0.8% at $1,927.90 early Wednesday. Bitcoin surged again Tuesday to close at $43,870. The cryptocurrency added less than 1% Wednesday morning to trade at around $44,100.

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