He was helping the worst dictator on Earth increase his power even more.
Right now there are sanctions against Russia, and some US companies are giving Bitcoin to Russians to help to escape the country, but the US government doesn’t make that illegal, because they are not helping Putin, but the refugees who got stuck in a horrible situation.
Of course US can make sending Bitcoin to Russian people illegal at any time, and then any person will know that they are risking going to prison if they still want to help those people.
Isn't it impossible? Bitcoins are being sent to random 256bits, not to people. Unless some Russian person reveals some adress and promises that he really owns the key, this kind of transaction may be hard to proove.
It's a public ledger, it's the worst way to make something illegal, many drug dealers found it out too late.
Just an example even if a person doesn't use an address, if a Russian person checks out a HD multisig public key from which other keys may be derived, the sender can get suspicious.
Right now there are sanctions against Russia, and some US companies are giving Bitcoin to Russians to help to escape the country, but the US government doesn’t make that illegal, because they are not helping Putin, but the refugees who got stuck in a horrible situation.
Of course US can make sending Bitcoin to Russian people illegal at any time, and then any person will know that they are risking going to prison if they still want to help those people.