In the week of June 13-17, the most popular (according to Investing.com Russia) financial instruments were the following: Bitcoin, Brent oil futures, Ethereum, Gazprom (MCX:GAZP) shares and EUR/USD.

As for news, the most interesting for the week were the following: Binance announced a “temporary” pause in withdrawals, the Central Bank named the amount of blocked foreign shares of investors from Russia, the State Duma allowed to suspend dividend payments to “lost shareholders”, Gates explained the popularity of cryptocurrencies by the “theory of the great fool” and IKEA is finally leaving Russia.

On Monday, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced a temporary suspension of customer withdrawals in bitcoins. This suspension came just hours after Celsius Network, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency lenders, suspended customer withdrawals due to “extreme market conditions.”

Vladimir Chistyukhin, first deputy chairman of the Bank of Russia, said the EU blocked foreign securities of Russian residents in the National Settlement Depository totaling 6 trillion rubles, Kommersant reports. NSD came under EU sanctions on June 3.

The State Duma passed in the first reading a bill that will allow companies to reduce their costs in connection with “lost shareholders”. This follows from the card of the bill in the database of the lower house of parliament. Within ten days, amendments to the document should be prepared, writes Forbes.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates believes that cryptocurrencies and NFT are “100% based on the theory of the big fool,” writes CNBC. Gates pointed to the much-publicized NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club as an example, noting that “Expensive digital images of monkeys can vastly improve the world.”

IKEA is completely withdrawing from Russia, the company will sell its four factories in Russia to another owner. The company explained this by the fact that business processes and supply chains have deteriorated due to sanctions. IKEA will also reduce its business and staff in the country, Kommersant reports.