A 17-year-old British schoolboy was sanctioned by the Kremlin for uncovering how Russia evades Western sanctions using cryptocurrency.
“I was sat at the back of my economics class, I opened up my laptop, and I saw a Reuters headline stating that I was sanctioned,” Alexander Browder told us. “Who wouldn't find it surreal to see their name being sanctioned by Russia?”
In most respects, Browder is like any other highschooler up until the final bell, but after school, he clocks in at what amounts to a full-time job, tracking how Russia and other sanctioned states move their money through cryptocurrency.
“I don't party much, I don't go out much,” he said. “I just spend time grinding on this.” Two years of evenings and weekends have brought him to the top of the Kremlin's radar, alongside Nobel laureates and dissidents. “It's clear I'm looking in the right place,” he said, “and it's clear the Kremlin is scared of what I may uncover.”
What he's been tracking is a stablecoin called A7A5 – a cryptocurrency pegged to a real-world asset, which was created in January 2025 specifically to evade sanctions.
Browder describes it as the product of a sanctioned Russian state bank and a sanctioned convicted Moldovan fraudster, Ilan Shor. And despite the EU banning all transactions with A7A5, it processed over USD 100 billion in its first year, kept alive by a network of enablers operating out of Kyrgyzstan.
That became Browder's focus: how to close that gap. His work then fed directly into British policy: 26 senior UK MPs and Lords wrote to the Foreign Secretary urging sanctions on the Kyrgyz enablers, citing his work directly. A few weeks later, the government acted on it.
In response, Russia retaliated not against the UK, but by sanctioning Browder himself. “Clearly, I have hit a nerve,” he explained.
Browder grew up surrounded by people working in anti-corruption and justice. His father, Bill Browder, is a renowned human rights activist and financier. “I need to do something to contribute,” he said, “to try and bring justice for people who may not have a voice to bring justice for themselves.”
What finally “lit a fire” for him was the February 2025 case in which North Korea stole $1.5 billion from a crypto exchange in seconds and laundered it within days, funnelling the money into its weapons programs.
“If North Korea is able to get away with stealing $1.5 billion, what else are these other governments able to do? And why isn't anyone doing anything about this?”
He believed that only a young person could find the solution, and with that conclusion, he got to work. “No senior politicians I've spoken to have any idea about how cryptocurrency works, or how bad actors are using cryptocurrency illicitly,” he said. “It needs to be a young person like myself, 17, to do something about that.”
It's a message he's now delivering at the highest levels; last week, 10 Downing Street invited him to speak on youth ambition.
Browder's advice to young people watching a world that feels like it's only getting worse, and losing hope in the leaders to fix it, is to place faith in yourself. “You shouldn't wait till you're older to try and fix it,” Browder said. “You should do it in the present.”
The tools, he insists, are already in your hands. “I did this all with open-source information. I didn't have proprietary techniques, I didn't have expensive equipment. If you have any laptop, any source of technology, you can be at the forefront of this.”
And being at the forefront can lead to a 17-year-old kid who has Putin shaking in his boots.