Kraken just announced they would donate the money the make from trading fees from Russian accounts to Ukraine – and I think that’s an incredibly smart move

This is only part of the announcement – they are also donating 10 million independent from those trading fees – but I want to focus on the part mentioned in the title – I think that's an incredibly smart move.

Personally, I am more on the "block Russians wherever possible" side – I don't like that "regular people" are being affected by that either, but it's how sanctions work and crypto exchanges doing it is really no different from other companies stopping to operate in Russia. However: I know that Kraken's CEO is a super-libertarian, so sure, that's not an option. I think it's the smartest thing they could have done. Even if I'm against not blocking the accounts, they can now say "but see, we are generating donations for Ukraine by doing this, do you not want us to do that?".

I personally would handle the situation differently, but I applaud them for this move. While I ideologically often disagree with their CEO, Kraken is a great exchange.