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The Ontario Securities Commission has raised its concern over the tweets of the CEOs of the crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken regarding self-custodial wallets that appeared to offer advice on how crypto owners can avoid the restrictions on funding for ongoing protests in Canada. However, recent reports suggest that despite orders to freeze funds, most of the crypto tied to the truckers protesting Covid-19 restrictions has been withdrawn from the identified addresses.
The OSC contacted law enforcement agencies and forwarded the tweets made by Coinbase and Kraken CEOs that it believed to be offering advice on how to evade sanctions on protests funding, according to Leaderpost.com.
OSC manager of public affairs Kristen Rose said that the Canadian regulator is aware of the posts made by Kraken CEO Jesse Powell and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong earlier this week, where they criticized the government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act. “We are aware of this information and have shared it with the RCMP and relevant federal authorities,” Rose said in an email.
The tweets also highlighted the importance of using non-custodial crypto wallets. In this type of digital wallet, the crypto owner holds the private key for the wallet instead of a third party such as a crypto trading platform, which makes it more difficult for law enforcement to freeze or seize their digital assets.
In recent weeks, thousands of Canadians in major cities joined the protest against the government’s vaccine mandates and other restrictions. Truckers joined the protests and blocked roads in Ontario as well as border crossings to the U.S.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ontario Provincial Police ordered financial institutions, including crypto exchanges to cease trading and freeze the assets of those involved in the trucker protests. Authorities identified 34 crypto wallets linked to the ongoing protest.
However, it appears that the move is not entirely effective. Coindesk reported that almost all of the roughly 20 BTC, which is valued at US$788,000, was transferred from the Tallycoin fundraiser address leaving only 0.11 BTC in the wallet.
Most of the addresses identified by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to be connected to the fundraising have been emptied as well. At the moment, the combined remaining balance of the identified addresses contained only 6 BTC.
