Ukraine's Largest Savings Bank Stops Using Hryvnias to Buy Bitcoin

The Ukrainian government has moved to legalize Bitcoin amid ongoing attacks by the Russian military, but some of the largest local banks have reportedly banned their customers from buying BTC using Ukraine’s national currency.

Ukraine’s largest commercial bank, PrivatBank, has temporarily restricted its customers from using the Ukrainian currency “hryvnia” (UAH) to buy bitcoin, industry media Forklog reported on Thursday.

The report quoted a PrivatBank spokesman as saying that PrivatBank's latest restrictions are in line with the order of the National Bank of Ukraine. The restrictions will reportedly apply during the country's current period of martial law.

The announcement comes shortly after Binance’s Ukrainian arm reported PrivatBank’s cryptocurrency restrictions on Wednesday.

“We would like to inform you that from March 2022, PrivatBank will not support UAH business on all crypto exchanges without exception,” Binance Ukraine announced in a post on Facebook.

Binance also advised its customers to use its peer-to-peer (P2P) trading service, noting that other banks could make similar decisions at any time.

According to the bank's official website, PrivatBank has taken several measures to maintain financial stability during the martial law period, increasing withdrawal limits. PrivatBank did not respond to Cointelegraph's request for comment.

The earliest reports of PrivatBank's crypto-related restrictions emerged in late February, with some users saying the bank was blocking user accounts associated with P2P crypto exchanges such as LocalBitcoins.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law establishing a legal framework for operating a regulated crypto market in the country. The Ukrainian government is actively working to adopt the regulations, and the Ukrainian parliament passed the legislation in a second session in mid-February.

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