“We really don’t believe there is any authentic, large-scale use of A7A5 outside of A7,” Keegan said in an email, referring to the token’s issuer. He added that trading volumes typically collapse on weekends because much of the activity appears to be linked to business-to-business transfers involving the Russia-linked Grinex exchange.
Meanwhile, Tom Robinson, co-founder of another blockchain analytics company, Elliptic, also said that the token has lost momentum. It said monthly transaction volumes have fallen more than 90% since January and are down 96% from their peak last year, following sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom, as well as the collapse of Grinex earlier this year.
“Select trade and transaction figures provided by A7A5 are consistent with Elliptic’s analysis,” Robinson said. “However, they hide the obvious trend: that the A7A5 is failing in its objective of allowing Russia to evade sanctions.”
A7A5’s Ogienko denied these claims and said that because the token activity primarily takes place in DeFi, it is not fully captured by major crypto data sites. “These outdated principles and metrics do not provide users around the world with objective information about A7A5,” he told CoinDesk in a statement via Telegram.
He said data providers including CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko and DeFiLlama are overly reliant on centralized exchange data, creating what he said is “a generally discriminatory approach, contrary to United Nations principles.”
