Last week, the price of Bitcoin tried to break through the resistance in the $45,000 zone. But it suddenly turned around and moved in the opposite direction since Thursday. At present, BTC is trading at $38,200.

The war between Ukraine and Russia caused significant financial upheaval. Individuals, businesses and even government agencies - not only in this region but around the world - are looking for alternatives to traditional systems.

As banks close, ATMs run out of money, savings could be the price of war, and the SWIFT international payment system becomes a weapon, Nigel Greene, CEO of financial consulting firm deVere Group, says the case for a viable, decentralized, an unrestricted, tamper-proof and confiscation-proof monetary system are encouraging.

However, the West does not sleep and continues to prepare new economic sanctions against Russia. As it became known three days ago, the US is finalizing a new package that it believes is designed to increase pressure on President Vladimir Putin: sanctions aimed at cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Bitcoin and Ethereum, are decentralized, that is, they are not owned by government bodies such as banks and are not issued by them. They do not have national borders, and any body capable of blocking transactions with cryptocurrencies also does not yet exist. All this, according to the American authorities, is used by the Kremlin, as well as other entities close to it that support the military operation in Ukraine in order to circumvent the sanctions regime.

According to cryptocurrency data provider Kaiko, transactions on centralized bitcoin exchanges in both Russian rubles and Ukrainian hryvnias have reached their highest levels in months.

Now the Russian owners of the cryptocurrency were advised to withdraw it to their own wallets as soon as possible.

The decree of the Russian president, which imposed restrictions on the withdrawal of capital abroad, does not directly prohibit cross-border transactions with cryptocurrency, but many crypto exchanges freeze the accounts of Russians, so that it is safer for users to quickly withdraw their assets to their own wallets.

It is not yet clear whether all Russians will rush to take advantage of such advice and how exactly the whole situation will affect the crypto market and Bitcoin itself.

Technical Analysis

On the 4H price chart, we can see that price has been moving within the sideways range in the $35,000-$45,000 zone for quite a long time. At the moment, BTC price is again moving below the 50-day EMA line. The signal line of the RSI indicator is also trading near the oversold zone and seems to trend up to the support line. MACD’s negative histogram is weakening, a slight price bounce may be appear.