Founder of Kuna cryptocurrency exchange says that the cryptocurrency market in Ukraine is dead

The head of the Ukrainian cryptocurrency exchange Kuna, Mykhailo Chobanyan, gave an interview to Channel 24, where he spoke about the cryptocurrency market in Ukraine, shared his vision of investing and outlined the industry’s prospects. Here are the main points of the interview.

Investment portfolio: before acting, you need to thoroughly understand what you are investing in and why you are doing it. You must understand the consequences for yourself. Unfortunately, not everyone does. That’s why we see bank failures, crowds of angry depositors, purchases of incomprehensible cryptocurrencies, etc. In these unstable times, it may be unclear to depositors what to invest in. So I would recommend keeping most of your savings in the asset you know the most about. I will not recommend something specific, each case is individual.

The main principles of Kuna: We postulate reliability and try to maintain our reputation. We also adhere to Сатоші Накамото" href="https://noworries.media/biography/satoshi-nakamoto/" data-bio-id="4232">Satoshi Nakamoto 's postulates as much as possible: keep assets to yourself and trust no one. I often campaign on my social media to keep crypto assets on personal wallets. If you are not familiar with this, do your due diligence — carefully check the counterparty you are entrusting your money to.

Kuna’s cooperation with Ukrainian regulators: There is no regulator in Ukraine at the moment, but there is a potential for its creation. Currently, the necessary functionality is performed by the Securities Commission and partially by the Ministry of Digital Transformation. As for the central bank’s digital currency and stablecoins, this is the NBU’s business. I personally communicate with the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the Securities Commission. There is a dialog, but no result. Therefore, we can probably say that the cryptocurrency market in Ukraine is dead. I mean, the legal one. Only the cash market will remain. All companies that have been operating legally in Ukraine will probably go bankrupt.

In Europe, everything is quite transparent. There is a regulator and special people who periodically communicate with it, go for interviews, and update the data. Everything is transparent and clear. In Ukraine, there is currently nothing to show and no one to show it to.

In my opinion, the solution to this problem is the political will of the country’s top leadership, which must make a decision whether they want Ukraine to maintain its leadership in the crypto market in the future or whether they think it is uninteresting and unpromising from their point of view.

Earlier, Chobanyan said that Kuna would leave the Ukrainian market due to regulatory pressure. According to him, «the policy of financial prohibitions of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has completely killed the cryptocurrency market in Ukraine as such.» At the same time, Chobanyan sees no obstacles to Kuna’s operation from European regulators.