Bitcoin can't save Putin, Kim Jong-un or Maduro from the sanctions squeeze

All the world's digital tokens are worth only about $700 billion

Vladimir Putin’s finance ministry wants to let cryptocurrencies trade on official Russian exchanges. Kim Jong Un’s hackers are stealing digital cash. Nicolas Maduro hopes a cryptocurrency backed by oil will lure investment back to Venezuela.

All three leaders are wading into the crypto-craze as their regimes grapple with the same problem: Sanctions curbing their access to the global financial system. But while bitcoin and opaque virtual currencies can provide sources of cash for political pariahs, the market’s still too nascent to make a meaningful skirting of a US-led economic blockade possible. 

Any autocrat eyeing bitcoin as a sanctions safe haven