Source time Edition date
PolicyDecrypt
Netanyahu Considering Crypto Plan to Dodge Banking Sanctions on Israel
内塔尼亚胡考虑用加密货币计划规避对以色列的银行制裁
Netanyahu's pre-election blockchain request raises a real tradeoff: sanction evasion versus banking stability, and Israeli regulators would have to decide how far it can go.
Judgment
Netanyahu's request moves the real decision to Israel's banking supervisors, who must choose whether to authorize a blockchain payments channel if sanctions land — trading faster settlement and continued trade against weaker AML controls and the risk of losing correspondent-bank access.
Basis
On Israeli television, days before the country's election, Netanyahu said he has asked for a plan to use blockchain to get around possible bank sanctions, and told Israelis to prepare for a rainy day after Trump, per Decrypt's Jose Antonio Lanz (edited by Guillermo Jimenez, Oct 23, 2026). The mechanism is a workaround: if Israeli banks are cut off, blockchain rails could route payments outside correspondent banking. But that same routing is what sanctions regimes screen for, so the cost lands on banks already reporting under anti-money-laundering rules — a channel built to evade sanctions makes every participating institution a higher-risk counterparty. Decrypt's ticker shows BTC $80,741.00 (-0.59%) and ETH $2,374.32 (-0.50%) alongside the story, no move tied to the remarks.
Unclear The source does not name which regulator or ministry was asked to draft the plan, which blockchain or stablecoin would be used, or whether the Bank of Israel has been consulted.
Next Watch for any public statement from the Bank of Israel or the Supervisor of Banks before the election on whether a state blockchain payments channel is under formal review.