Bitcoin Forum

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/28/binance-will-not-block-russian-accounts-after-ukraine-request.html (https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/28/binance-will-not-block-russian-accounts-after-ukraine-request.html)


Binance is refusing to lock account belonging to Russian customer's, what is your take on this? I believe that this might be a better move due to Russian Citizens that don't desire war still being able to move their Roubles to crypto for safe storage.

I find this to be good, because a small portion of the population wants war. The majority are protesting against the decision of the government. In such situation the entire population getting affected out of the sanctions from different organisations will ruin the life. But, there is now other way to end the war. However the decision will help the users who keep hold of cryptocurrency, but to move rubles it is quite hard as banking transaction support is very limited for now.

I think it shows that Binance is committed to provide good service to it’s customers despite political pressure or government dealings. I expect this will rub some the wrong way and they will stop using the service, but personally I would be more concerned if I was a customer and they were just freezing assets of their customers for any reason they’re told. This is why DeFi is so important and I hope the Bitcoin community gets access to some good DeFi options someday soon, because it is clear that the exchanges will be the point of failure for Bitcoin going forward.

This does not belong to Bitcoin discussion. You should move it to Exchanges (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=223.0) board

I mean, why should innocent Citizens suffer because of the indiscreet decisions of their rulers?
So far so good for Binance and some other exchanges, but there might be more to come with time if you read their terms and conditions, especially with Countries sanctioned by the US

For example, Binance says (https://www.binance.com/en/terms)

and binance as a crypto market provider to act in this way is one of the right things considering this will give crypto users there a way to move their money on binance and as we know one of the effects of the war russia and ukraine made several public financial services in both countries will be disturbed and even prolonged economic inflation will occur if there is no peace word -"I hope this doesn't last long"- so holding crypto is one way to avoid very significant inflation

It is just a right decision.Binance shouldnt really able to generalize and make out such decision on blocking russian users yet they have nothing to do with the war whats happening now.

It would really be just a childish act of their if they would really do so.It would really just give out bad impressions towards the platform instead.There should be no bias decisions

just because they live on on a country where their leader do really sucks.  :D

Binance donates to Ukraine and refuses to block Russian customers on their exchanges, I think that's the gesture of neutrality.

With that decision they've made, it's already a big help to them since they've been placed with too many sanctions that's already affecting their economy.

It's not the citizens and customers that they're against with but the action of their government towards making the conflict.

But they also said they are willing to freeze accounts of sanctioned users. CZ also said something about "why crypto exist" which I find funny since it's coming from an owner of a centralized exchange.

Stupid request of Ukraine's Vice Prime Minister to freeze even the accounts of ordinary users.

Remember What Vladimir Putin said read this


So why would they suspend or ban Russian customers which we know most of them are not involved in the war?

That is why I think Binance refuses to block Russian customers because it could affect their business and I think more hackers in Russia that can attack Binance security, it is more problematic, and more people will be affected than just refusing it.

My thoughts too. Whatever your position is with the current conflict, I'm not one for punishing the people of a particular country, even if it's a way of getting through to the government. I'm actually disgusted by the amount of companies that are basically making this a PR stunt, banning Russia from x, y, and z just because it looks good on them in the West.

At the end of the day, you should be punishing those responsible, not the people. I suspect this is a good thing for Bitcoin, since a lot more people will want to be in control of their money, but it's pretty tragic that political pressure has caused this in the first place. Same as deporting, and banning Russia's from certain things, and competitions. While I understand it hurts Russia, it also hurts innocent people.

They're just the right decision and prove that there are centralized exchanges that have a neutral treatment between the two countries.
Kraken and Binance were in the right decision, they proved a good service of an exchange that cares about their users and this will not give a shit to the image of all centralized exchangers and many people will be believed and trust in them.

Many people especially innocent users in Russia will be impressed by this decision and we shouldn't forget that it's still not good to store a large amount on the exchange, in cases like this, isn't hurt that much if your account will freeze if only has small amount.

Hopefully, despite these exchanges acting in good faith, and not limiting users from their money, people start to think twice about storing any large funds on exchanges. Ideally, that would be the case already, however far too many Bitcoin users ignore this, and store it there anyway. I don't think it's even limited to users who only have a small amount of Bitcoin, which is the worrying part.

After all, it's the fundamental reason why Bitcoin exists, and a lot of people will argue that it's Bitcoin's most important feature. The ability to be in control of your own money, and security without relying on a third party. That's the ultimate definition of freedom, which I suspect after this conflict ends, a lot of people will be seeking as a result.

as far as I understand, Binance will only comply with the sanctions through a ban on payment card transactions (Visa, Mastercard) for Russian users. yet I would not be surprised if in the case of more rigorous sanctions they introduce additional restrictions.


yes, who the hell is he doing to regulate the crypto market. he just seems to have over-understood the empathy we all currently have towards the Ukrainian people.

I don't see anything wrong with this. Why should Binance deprive the Russian people from having access to the better currency, especially during these times of conflict and uncertainty? I know that various sanctions in place are in effect ultimately hitting civilians in Russia, but some of them might be justified. To a certain extent, the Kremlin will have to realize that bringing unprovoked war into a sovereign country will have its consequences to the general public. And that's now being felt by ordinary Russians, many of whom might take refuge in keeping the value of their money in Bitcoin. They shouldn't be deprived of this haven while the Russian ruble is crumbling down.

Binance is being considerate which is very understandable, between I think not only binance has said this including coinbase (I read it somewhere) I think such action will be too hard on the rest of the innocent Russian citizens who are as equally victims of a dictator as the Ukrainian, their only crime is being a citizen of a country whose president is unapproachable.
The various sanctions slammed on Russia are already affecting the economy, doing this will be too much.

So does coinbase and Kraken too.
But why would they block even? There are people in Russia who are opposing the move of Putin. This doesn’t make any sense to block any of the customers account unless they find a reasonable argument. I strongly support this move from the exchange to not block the accounts.

@op why single out only binance when coinbase and kraken also feel the same way?  :-\
Am glad binance, coinbase and kraken didn't agree to this, can you imagine being a citizen of that country and mostly getting your income from crypto sources and you are suddenly subject to this harshness simply because of the atrocities of your president? They made the right decision, not everything should be categorized as politics, crypto is decentralized and supposed to be an alternative to fiat oppression undermining the exchange are centralized.

Politics is interfering with everything in our current lives, which is also seen as a concrete example of decentralization. According to an article I just read, many Ukrainians are struggling to find ways to get cash during this time. And the removal of regional accounts to avoid a sell-off of Russian shark whales is not particularly news.

I would be wary on this. This stance can easily change. Keeping unnecessarily money at centralized exchanges is always a risk (not your keys, not your coins).
If I would be Russian I would withdraw my Bitcoins (or at least most of them) to a safely generated local wallet, just in case, especially after the precedent of what has happened with Binance's Nigerian customers.


PS. Weren't 50% of Russians agreeing to the war? (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10543865/Half-Russians-believe-RIGHT-use-military-force-Ukraine-NATO-poll-reveals.html)

Good action from Binance to protect their customers from Russia. It is good for cryptocurrency market too because be our own banks is what people look for with cryptocurrency. I know when you have account on Binance, you don't have a non-custodial wallet that means you don't have your own bank but at least, some sort of better than fiat currency and central banks.

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By the way, I feel like Binance do this because they don't have branch in Russia. I could be wrong about it and still curious to figure it out.

Binance is very wise in acting, if binance favors one party then the freedom of crypto will be in question. It should be like this, political issues are not the realm of crypto even though politics has an effect on crypto fluctuations.

Manny Russian doesn't support on what Putin do so I generalizing this is totally unfair to the Russian costumer and its freedom because they are not the one who impose or initiate this war their government is tha main culprit of this incident so I guess binance is doing fine for that matters. Being nuetral for this event is good and might Binance will be at risk to get banned in Russia if things will get back to normal.

Bitcoin is freedom and it should be for everyone.
Bitcoin should not be a political tool.

There are a bit more of a handful of oligarchs for sure, but there are many millions of other Russian people who don't want the war but they gonna suffer the consequences anyway. Those people should have an alternative to loose everything because of the tyranny they live with.
 

Why would binance need to lock an account?

because the account is Russian? or from Russia?

it is not ethical to do such though there are many countries condemning what Russian government is doing now , the crypto users also have their rights towards their fund and where to store this,

A good act from binance and supporting this good deeds .

I think this is another great move by Binance because even though we understand that the exchange in question is centralized but the crypto ecosystem ought to be decentralized and if Binance had gone ahead to comply with that it would bring a whole new disadvantage to the system even though I also read in one of the Treadview news days ago, unfortunately, I can't locate that link about this and Kraken exchange too also rejected this blockage because most of the owners ain't relly the Government people.

They need to stay nuetral at all times regarding on some issues happening around the world since in the first place crypto is not regulated yet majority of the country so they need to be careful on decision making since one wrong move by imposing sanction will back fire on them especially the said country is a powerful one and can able to do what they think good for them.

I don't even know where their headquarters are, I don't know why they ask people to KYC if they're not even based in any country, that's why they're going to adopt this kind of attitude, because for them the laws of each country don't work and I ask myself again why do they ask for KYC? who are they accountable to? their stance is typical of a place that has no headquarters, if they were located in a country where they are against russia they would have to adopt a tough stance against russia, but they are not thirsty, and knowing that the owner is chinese of course would have to be neutral

Better serve by focusing on the needs of individuals rather than the needs of any government or political faction.That's the point of Jesse Powell. Everyone has their own right, but I'm not sure which one is really relevant when individuals also influence. Obviously, we all don't want war, and the way they punish each other, we don't either.

Same thing happened to Kraken a few weeks ago when an outside countries government demanded them to stop transfers and ban certain users accounts from transacting, and look how that turned out.
It seems the actioning party is painting all russian users with the same brush.
Doing so just might backfire on them so they rather not do anything.

Russians who don't desire the war should either leave their country, denounce it and never come back, or do everything they can to help stop the war: spread information, protest, strike, block military bases etc. After donating money to Ukraine and opening a charity fund dedicated to helping Ukrainians, it's disappointing that they're not willing to do more, impose their own 'sanctions' over Russians. But I do agree that making it about literally all Russians (banning access based on citizenship) is a bit too harsh because it can affect even those who do protest against the war and do gather funds to help Ukraine. So a smarter solution is needed for this situation, but limiting Russia's capabilities is also important.

Yes, this is a very rationale move by Binance as it is not the fault of ordinary Russians that their leader made the war against Ukraine. I am sure that there are many Russians that never welcome this war but under a dictator they are just afraid to have their voice heard. And with falling national currency, Russians should not be cut-off from cryptocurrency as this the time that they really need it most. This is one of the many things that we admire with Binance which is doing the right thing without being told to do so.

Russian people doesn't want war and we know that already because we've seen some Russian people protesting with what is happening.
Its only Putin that wants this war but not his countrymen so why block those people who wants to use crypto.

Correct me but it would be better because with Russia being banned to use swift to transfer money, they will find another way and that another way is crypto. Its a good move by Binance not blocking these people and what is happening will favor to them as they will get more profit from it.

I think Binance's actions are very good, where he is neutral without blocking Russian citizens from using his trade, because as we know there are Russian citizens who reject war

How could Binance ban account owners with the russian state, it would hurt them. Russia is even the country with the largest crypto mine. So I think their deals are also big and maybe Binance is benefiting from that. In addition, Russia which gets financial transaction penalties from various countries has a chance of them using Bitcoin as a transaction tool and it certainly supports the development of Bitcoin and other crypto. While other issues, of course, Binance does not want to court exchange with a double standard that distinguishes the rights of its members. That's a good thing for Binance's credibility.

I don’t understand at all how it is possible, because of the actions of the leadership of the country or the government, to punish the population in such "draconian" ways. What will be the effect? What do they expect even just to propose such measures? Do they really think that people who lose their cryptocurrencies will go to the streets of their cities to demand something? This is naive and very dangerous. In addition, it will lead to an outflow of a huge number of customers.

The ukraine government is not only asking for binance but they are also asking for the same for coinbase, kraken, kucoin. But all refused. This is clearly the right decision. The nature of crypto is freedom, if exchanges unilaterally lock user accounts, it will go against the principles of crypto of decentralization and financial freedom.

If Russians are blocked in binance, they cant trade there anymore and they need to find another exchange where they are allowed. This does not influence users from other countries and what will they get when they follow it? if there is the one that they will support right now, that will only be Ukraine because they are the ones that are heavily damaged.

It's not going to be a big loss if binance blocked Russian users because they have a million users around the world but binance didn't do it not because they are afraid to lose a small percent of their income but because they are showing how neutral they are. Don't worry binance, good things are soon going to happen with you as lots are impressed by this move you have done.

I am not a Binance supporter but I think trying to lay the blame on Binance for not blocking regular Russian people is unfair giving them the light of events that they were among the first to donate to Ukraine,,, remember that those in power and the elites are less likely to be using Binance or any exchange I think.

Regular Iranians and Regular Cubans suffered for years because of idiot leaders. I always thought that was extremely unfair for them.

Binance is not the best exchange in Russia, yes, it can be one of the popular and large ones, so it will be the first exchange to cooperate with regulators. All Russian users have long been warned that their cryptocurrencies can be blocked, so many people are leaving centralized exchanges.

Well binance did what they thought is fair and I don't think that will pose any problem for them, they did not completely refuse the blockage of some of the accounts targeted by the sanctions, according to this statement from binance spokesman - "We're blocking accounts of those on the sanctions list (if they have Binance accounts) and ensuring that all sanctions are met in full," so binance will only block such account on the sanctions list and with full certainty that all sanctions where met.

If Binance does it, the whole purpose of cryptos will be defeated. Crypto is supposed to provide us with an unrestricted access to our wealth. If Binance blocks access of a particular country, it will earn them a bad reputation.

I am sure Russian common population do not want war so they should not be the sufferers. Also CZ is a Chinese person by origin and China is one of the biggest supporters of Russia. That might be another reason for not taking any action.

Everyone knows that Russians don't want war, and binance made the right decision because all Russians are innocent and they also want the war to end quickly.
If binance did, it would be against the core principles of financial freedom inherent in crypto, and would tarnish the reputation of binance or any other crypto exchange if it did.

I think like this as well, I understand that people are mad at the Russian government for what is happening at Ukraine but that does not mean that every single Russian citizen needs to pay the consequences for the acts of their political and military leaders.

As long as people are not doing anything illegal then no financial institution should have the right to freeze your accounts for not reason at all, so I am glad that Binance has decided to not block their Russian customers.

The war is not going to remain forever and therefore, binance would never want to block the russians citizen from using their trading portal.

Russians can still trade crypto on decentralized platforms but binance would only lose their business if they ban the russia from using their site.

So far, the binance will not block anything, but you should not exclude such a possibility. Don't hold large sums on centralized exchanges, because it is always a risk, even without the threat of blocking. In the meantime, binance has stated that there will be no blocking and users from Russia, they can continue to use the services of the exchange.

Thats a good news from those Russian users of this platform that they wouldnt really get that kind of treatment on where everybody been thinking to be that way.I dont know if thats
some exclusion but Binance is a business and they couldnt just let those kind of blocking to be that a solution on this ongoing war.They dont just like to get involved
and make business as usual which i do see also to be ethical to be done.

There's no other reason for them to stay to an exchange that they've been blocked. They're just going to look for another one that they can use that allows them to trade normally just like any other users from other locations.

I also think that it's a bright move by binance. Their stand is important as they're one of the biggest exchange in the world and the volume that flows in them matters to these countries.

Not long ago Binance froze accounts of Colombian citizens by order issued from Holland, regardless of the situation it was a selective freeze... it is unthinkable that all Russians have to pay for a few...but the worst thing is that these few who should be punished with a ban on their accounts benefit from that selective decision in this case. (So they prefer not to block any of them the Russian oligarchs get in)

Ah! so why if Binance freezes selective accounts like the case mentioned, because he doesn't do it now.

It is never a good idea to save crypto on a centralized exchange and I don't see any reason why Binance will block the Russian citizen wallet because of political affairs whereas crypto is neutral.
For the record, Coinbase is the first cryptocurrency exchange I know co-operate with the regulator right from the time when the US SEC introduced KYC/AML.

It's not only Binance, any exchange shouldn't block a user's account anyway. The fault isn't of Citizens, Binance would block government officers' accounts if they really want to do something. Any exchange would exclude a country if they want, but for that fund wouldn't be seized anyway. And excluding a country is harmful to the exchange, not for the users. There are a lot of cryptocurrency users and traders in Russia and a handsome revenue has been coming from there. So taking a strict decision means the exchange will lose the revenue from there. I don't think exchanges owners are soo stupid anyway. Rather than exchange owners could stand for Ukraine Citizens to help them like Binance.

I support the decision made by Binance refusing to block Russian wallets. It indicates Binance has a high dedication to upholding the decentralized system, not influenced by the policies or decisions of any country in the world. We have to remember that Binance isn't a partnership of any government in the world, so Binance has no obligation to follow the decisions of any government. We must give appreciation to Binance that they show us a neutral attitude or a neutral decision, Binance doesn't follow the political actions of any country during this war.

Binance is just being reasonable to their clients. As most of these Russians do not want this war, it is unfair to them if they will be turned down other services like in crypto. This may be their only way to secure their assets right now, and will be used to their basic needs once this war is over. We don't know what will happen to their government, on how they will manage the funds of its people. But right now, one way to secure their assets is via crypto. At least have something left after this war.

Glads they made the right decision. That's why the cryptocurrency is present as modern gold and it's free to use for everyone in the blockchain. I just hate that everyone is ban any Russian related in every sector because of unfair politics, I mean they even not different than doing war in the open field

I understand how binance stands of not banning russian customers because cryptocurrency should be to all, no boundaries, race and religion. I am totally in favors with binance decision and this act will be good example should be implemented towards the future of cryptocurrencies.

Yeah I think I am with Binance on this. I will admit I have a very sour taste in my mouth when it comes to much of the Eastern world, namely China and Russia. This way has shown me that Russians are not as bad of a people as a whole as I thought they were. I think Binance made the right call here.

That's actually a good point of view and may be the actual reason why Binance has not banned Russian citizens from accessing their binance accounts.
Binance has made a donation of $10 million in crypto to Ukraine humanitarian effort group which is really a good amount to help the needy.
Also, I think it does not want to put any sanctions on Russia since it would directly reduce their profits which is why they haven't restricted access to Russian citizens.

Yes, it should be like that, Binance acts neutrally and upholds the rights of each customers, after all Binance does not have any authority regarding the war that is happening in Russia, precisely when he imposes restrictions on his customers in Russia it will harm Binance itself. Well, I do respect Binance for his decision, he has proven to be an independent crypto market no matter what the circumstances, salute!

if binance freezes Russian citizen accounts then they are no different from putin.  putin's evil deeds must not make Russian citizens who refuse war suffer, putin fights for his ego but russians fight putin for their country, i support if russian citizens convert their rubles to crypto to make their fund more secure.

You need to know, not all Russian citizens support the invasion. So what Binance did was a wise move that shouldn't be judging Russians as a whole. After all, Binance also doesn't want Russian users with big finances to walking away from the exchange. It will automatically experience a sharp decline and Binance earnings will also suffer.

I think this is a wise move as Binance is not an authoritarian exchange, they do condemn the invasion but to restrict or block Russian traders from Binance is not a wise move. Cryptocurrency is a system of financial freedom and it should be valid forever. Precisely the role of cryptocurrencies here has helped both the Ukrainians who made the donations and the Russians who still have a store of value in crypto, especially in Bitcoin.

               While this is good for their reputation and for all the crypto customers(not just the Russians), I worry that it puts them in the crosshairs of the people trying to suppress the Russians via the sanctions. This may seem like a noble act but there may be some ulterior motives that we don't know about. Regardless of having ulterior motives or not, I respect binance for doing this though despite being a centralised exchange. It does not get easily swayed and doesn't distance itself entirely from the ideology of this industry which is freedom to an extent that is enough to not fully be controlled and dictated by any government or banks.

To be honest, I can feel what the ordinary anti-war Russian citizens are feeling right now in getting "isolated" from the world like the SWIFT, hard sanctions, etc., because of Putin and his cronies. They don't want this, because their global reputation is at stake.

I have a beautiful friend of Russia who is a crypto, DeFi and NFT advocate. For sure, she would be "devastated" if Binance and other crypto exchanges are going to block ordinary Russians from doing crypto trading and other transactions as usual.

It's a good thing that Binance is considering Russian users' welfare. I wonder why others are aiming to bring down the people of Russia by banning, boycotting and discriminating them even though they're also a victim of this current war. We should not let innocent people suffer as well as businesses because most of them also want peace but they're being torned because of their nationality. We should also be fair to those who don't want war.

Binance owes this to their Russian customers who have been loyal to them over the years. It is a personal decision for Binance management and i feel they shouldn't be forced into decision of locking accounts owned by Russians or castigated for not following the crowd. If they did, it would have affected the decision/opinions of many others including myself who aren't even russian but understand that what is happening to russians can happen to anyone.

Not just that, but a lot of Russian people do not support this war.  They are facing the consequences of actions they don't want to be happening.  Their stock market is wrecked, their currency is fading fast...  It isn't their fault.  Many of them are probably seeing Bitcoin as a lifeline to protect their life savings.  It would be wrong to lock these people out of the system just because of a government disagreement.  There is KYC in place to make sure that Putin isn't using Binance to avoid sanctions.  I think a lot of people just want to cause Russia the most harm possible, without thinking about the fact that there are real people suffering on both sides of this war, and I'm sure a vast majority of them wish it had never happened.

I wonder why should lcok? Not all Russians or Ukraine are willing to have any war. And this is a business that will be always business. Binance may be going to lose many users if they must block Russian users. So, this will not happen. Moroever, it is business again, and this is also about personal choice where sometimes, Russian will also not really want to war and will not care aboutt the war.
If Binance do locking to their wallet, the problem amy be further bigger to Binance tself.

Not only Russians would lose up trust but also in other nationalities as well on which they dont really take up some consideration specially now on hardest days of their lives because of the war that they are experiencing

as of this moment.It is really just right that they dont give out that kind of decision on blocking Russian customers which is really a good call if you do ask me, they do know on what to do
and also it has nothing to do with any legal or jurisdiction about on this current scenario or condition.

A very good step taken by binance, even though we know the invasion carried out by Russia on Ukraine, various economic sanctions began to be aggressively imposed on Russia, including the Chelsea boss also suffered the same fate, suffered tremendous losses, even news circulated Chelsea boss wants to sell his shares to other investors, luckily there is Binance ready to accommodate investors to switch to krypto, to still be able to do international transactions..

In my opinion, justice is being played by those in power, such as the United States and Australia which completely boycotted Russian investors, even FIFA has made a decision not to allow the Russian team to participate in any competitions. I don't want the war to have a tremendous impact, even though there are some who think negatively about Binance who doesn't want to block crypto, but I'm personally very grateful to Binance, which provides space for investors, to be able to continue their business..

This is a double-edged sword though, on one hand it's good for the innocent people to evacuate their money out of their collapsing economy but on the other, it's a way to finance Russian military since they're going to need money to be able to make sure that the campaign will continue and that they're going to get their soldiers paid and have their resources replenished without worrying about the payment or the money.

I support and agree with Binance's decision, especially Russian citizens who have accounts on Binance, I think Binance is standing impartially to anyone, I'm also happy to hear this news, that's what Binance has to do.

I consider Binance's decision to be the best decision for its customers around the world.

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance is doing the right thing so far. The request of the government of Ukraine is not a legal basis for blocking the cryptocurrency accounts of Russian citizens. After all, they can file lawsuits and the exchange will have to compensate them for the damage. But if such a decision is drawn up correctly and it will already come from the regulatory authorities at the place of registration of the exchange, then it will have to obey. Otherwise, she may be banned from working in the market.

Well, at least someone has iron ballz, doesn't bend under the general hysteria and has the courage to declare this to the whole world. We perceive such an event as some kind of heroism, but is it really supposed to be like that? Maintaining neutrality should be a priority for all such exchange platforms.

As for Binance, I would not harbor big illusions: they can change their mind at any time. You don't need to rule this option out either.

They would be losing more users if they do this. More people will start to thing twice before using a centralized exchange. What if their accounts accounts are next? Moreover, not all Russians are for the war. There are many that condemns the war. Why punish them? By the way, they are not freezing "users" crypto wallets, they are freezing their funds. The funds you send on your Binance wallet, never stays there. Check your transaction on blockchain. The funds usually gets moved to Binance's hot wallet as soon as the required confirmation has been reached.

well that would be fair because indeed russian doesn't want war to Ukrainians, for me only putin needs a punishment behind of that conflict because of his personal interest.
Wherein government must freeze all of his bank account and Russian should not be included because they are innocents as well even those rusian troops that being duped into war..

IMO, I believe that Binance doing is right because those Russian crypto users are not part or involved in the invasion and I also believe that they don't want the war only Putin wants it, and because of this many innocent people in Russia has suffering now with the mistake committed by Putin those sanctions are designed to make people suffer by destabilizing their economy to force its leader to do something but Putin has not done it so far. to be exact both Binance and Coinbase are also declining the Ukraine request. 

While I don't believe average Russia ln citizens should have their funds seized or even frozen, Binance is playing a very risky game. They stated in the last they'd like a US listing, but they're more likely to end up with a US jail cell if they keep antagonizing financial authorities. It was a stunning and previously unthinkable display to cut most of Russia off from SWIFT, so it just goes to show how far most countries are willing to go in enforcing financial sanctions against the country. Ultimately Binance, or at least it's payment processor partners, might find out that they are no longer permitted to accept things like Visa or MasterCard in future. It's a very dangerous route for them to take for what must be a relatively insignificant market for their products.

I find Binance's choice right, but looking at the other side of the coin, what could be done to stop these madmen? In addition to sanctions, one can only deal with an agreement or a world war, but binance like so many others have economic interests, such as Switzerland for example which is adopting cryptocurrencies, I see several shifts of money in the direction of crypto, Russian citizens who have no faults in somehow they gotta die? I don't think so, war causes harm to everyone without distinction

Yeah most probably, Binance would be losing more users if they do this. For me, Binance just did the right choice to refuse to block Russian customer's if the main reason is just because of the war. It would be unfair for the citizens of Russia because probably not all of them want a war, they just also like us wanted to live in a peaceful place. There's no point of blocking them to access, use, and transact their own assets using this platform.

Everyone in Russia, who is smart enough to know how to use crypto, definitely doesn't believe in their government. Good move.

I support this Idea, most Russians do not support Putin with this war even some of his soldiers. so why should they be victim? Binance has always been the last place for such ban. They didnt delist or ban XRP which is in court till date so how will binance lead such campaign against the citizens of Russia. Russian are also victim of the war, Putin should be criticized instead.

They do not want to "block" Russian customers wallets, but they are quick to block Nigerian wallets... right? See this article and see if this is fair or not? ==> https://techcabal.com/2022/01/31/30-scam-70-kyc-why-binance-blocked-over-200-nigerian-accounts/

They know that the Russians are pushing through a lot of trading fees at this moment, so Binance are making money like crazy now.. so it is not a question on morals or principle.... but rather about profits.  ::)

Dude  , that is just different context.

Yupp .. they did it in style.

After they decided to donating $10 million to help the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine , there is another great gesture here by letting russian using their platform , of course there is no political interest here .. both sides helped by binance while they could also get a lot of traffic and new user incoming with the economic crisis getting hit russia. Well done binance.

It's not the same case.

On one hand, Binance is being asked to block all Russian customers because of the ongoing conflict. That's it, no other valid reason provided. On the other hand, the Nigeria case is more of a legal issue.

If case you didn't know, P2P transactions in Nigeria since the central bank ban actually grew. Knowing Binance is a business, they will take advantage of that and they won't just ban any user on a whim.

I think that it doesn't matter f Binance not blocking the wallet of Russian users. It is fair because they are the provider and also users, no worry if they come from Russia r not as long as the country is not restricted. And if Binance blocks the user from Russia, maybe they will lose some percentages of the income activities.
I am also wondering that not all people of Russia and also Ukraine also support the war, aren't they? I feel so silly for them that they are both victims of the certain politics or interests from the government. We really hope that the war will end soon and will not  infleunce biger war again

I feel like they shouldn't block them simply because Bitcoin is above any conflicts. It should remain apolitical and everybody (which includes the murderer Putin) should have access to it. That said if centralized exchanges like Binance are banning people for breach of TOS, they can as well add Russians to their TOS and ban them. In the end it's their platform and if they are restricting people's access anyway, which means they don't feel like Bitcoin is for everybody, they could show their support of Ukraine. They are not doing it because of principles. It's about the money.

Binance has that neutral thinking.

CZ understands it together with his team that the most affected if they'll put sanctions just like the other industries to Russia, are the innocent people there.

They know that there could be government supporters that would take money to go through crypto but the majority are just innocent citizens that want an end to this battle.

Binance already made it clear only selective accounts targeted by the sanctions and fully affected by the sanction will be blocked, it is unethical to ban all Russian accounts as the government has requested, they have to follow due process and ban only those that fall in the category.
Binance made a public statement to address this, there is no need for confusion.

I believe you must have read this article yourself and seen the difference between the Nigerian blocked accounts and what the situation is with the Russian traders. If you are using Binance and know you have to complete KYC yet didn't and still want to get those services then I think that is justified plus a law enforcement request. Even though I am not in support of the Russian Government's move on Ukrain, traders from Russia shouldn't be the ones receiving all the hits from all these sanctions cos we know they will feel it the most so it's a thoughtful move by Binance. 

March 5th


March 7th:
https://blog.coinbase.com/using-crypto-tech-to-promote-sanctions-compliance-8a17b1dabd68


Let's see the moment the US puts pressure on Visa and some banks to cut ties with Binance and Kraken, how long it will take those two to forget what they have promised a few days ago?

I like what Binance did and for me it was the right thing,
They don't have to ban all of their Russian customer's because there are also innocent people out there and they could use crypto to save some of their wealth.

March 8th:
https://twitter.com/binance/status/1501166638531760129
and here for more details https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/675e9bb985ec43d8a63d8a9f26dac7c4
Not so long Binance was able to keep his promise.

At the end of the announcement on the Binance offsite, you can see this (quote):
"Binance reserves the right in its sole discretion to amend or change or cancel this announcement at any time and for any reasons without prior notice."

Did they leave a loophole for themselves?

I disagree but I may be corrected if I am wrong.  Binance enforces Know Your Customer now.  If they truly cared about providing good service to customers despite political pressure or government dealings, it would have ran without Know Your Customer even today.  And I do not think they wanted this policy implemented, particularly with Binance sitting a few months ago on the top of non Know Your Customer centralized Exchanges.  It was an advantage of theirs.

With enough political pressure, they know their entire business can be screwed so at the end of the day they have to accept whatever they are told to do.  Sad, but stompix is right.  It is all about how much pressure the United States government wants to put on you before you give up neutrality.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

As of today, Binance stops supporting visa and mc cards issued in Russia. Thus they have joined the world sanctions and users from Russia cannot directly deposit the Russian Ruble on the exchange. Needless to say, Binance can join other sanctions at any time? I believe they can block an account at any time.

Binance has really gone through alot in terms of regulations and if am not mistaken the company was hit hard from the European countries which i find amusing now because these are the most likely to be putting pressure on them to put temporary sactions on Russia and based on probability they could actually have a good number of customers coming from this part of the world... and as a business they wouldn't want to go down this route because it will hurt them financially .

That's the most sensible thing to do. Why block accounts of innocent traders in Russia when it knows they aren't Putin or a part of Putin's cabinet. To be sincere with you, I think those who want accounts belonging to Russian traders banned aren't thinking it through. Such a thought isn't coming from a place of objectiveness. For crying out loud, those traders are also passing through a hard time occasioned by the war in their country. Come to think of it, Biden and his cohorts are yet to boycott Russian oil and gas. Why haven't they stopped buying oil from Russia yet? Sincerely, this war has become an eye opener for me on the double standard played by the US in global politics.

I think like that. Russia is a country with a fairly large number of miners. In addition, they are a country with a large number of Binance members. Blocking is too complicated and it goes against the principle of decentralized Bitcoin that cannot be controlled (other than money). In fact, it seems that Bitcoin transactions with rubles have increased since last month. I am happy with Binance's neutral decision, it is good news for Bitcoin and crypto users around the world.

Just a comment on the Coinbase block of 25000 addresses related to Russians related to illicit activity. The text also goes on to say that:
The intake I make is that they regularly block addresses (they mention (interaction with certain) addresses, not the accounts that TX with these addresses, but probably part of the same package) as per their explanation, but it’s not specifically something related to the sanctions as yet; more like historical data brought upfront to show their proactiveness or such.

Having said that, I would not be surprised, if this goes on, to see it happening in major Exchanges at some point, just as some South Korean Exchanges have done (https://www.businesstoday.in/crypto/story/south-korean-crypto-exchanges-move-to-ban-russian-users-325059-2022-03-07), blocking access from Russian IPs.

Exactly, if one of the associates of the Russian president had an account with them then I think they could block their account especially if they were asked to do so by a powerful entity, like the US government, but blocking Russian citizens just because of the place they were born, something in which they had no control at all, is simply wrong.

So I agree with decision of Binance of not doing anything like this, however lets see for how long they can maintain this posture as it would not be weird if they changed their stance if the pressure on them to do something like this keeps growing.

Having that neutral decision does really shows that they wouldnt really be bias out and how people should be dealing with decentralized thing even though the platform itself is centralized

but having this kind of decision or action towards this current war condition is something commendable.They dont take out it personally and didnt make out any blockage on Russian users.
It is something that you  couldnt really expect since we do see sanctions anywhere on Russia.

Elizabeth Warren, democrat of Massachusetts have written a letter to Janet Yellen, the Treasury Secretary under Biden. Now everyone want to make the sanctions effective as Russia tries to use cryptocurrency as a tool. Majority of the members are under Biden administration haven't made it a big proposal, because they're sure that Russia can't overcome the imposed sanctions with cryptocurrency.

Well, from my point of view it was more like, you know we were already doing this but we keep babbling non-sense about freedom for marketing purposes.

What all exchanges to date have denied is verbal request, of course, they can say no to that, but if a country powerful enough comes with a legal threat all of them will cave. They will simply make some rapid math and see that 5% is way smaller when compared to losing it all and maybe getting picked up by some agents at the airport checking.

As for Binance and CZ, I wouldn't trust a single letter from their statement, he was the guy tweeting he will sue Japanese newspapers when he was taking his bag while fleeing the country, you don't get wealthy by constantly saying the truth. If the US threatens them and Visa will be forced to shut down all the cards issued for them on top of card transactions to Binance what will he do, I'm not so sure he hasn't already handed a lot of data to authorities already while on Twitter he brags about protecting his customers.

How you work for peace.

So the cops knows he won't block their wallets. CZ.

Do me a favor some day. Opportunist one.

I have a story about a hammer when you are ready for it.

Fuck sake. I got muted on Trevons comment section. He is gonna compound. Youtube. Told him about the burner numbers now.

Check. I could post on Piggy Banks video. On track. Comments.

Trevon. If you read this. I am still doing porno.

Russian crypto. Let me see.

---

Super awesome.

Why they made an independent exchange in the states. Imagine me putting my finger in the piece of cake I want.

A good entry is when you get the money out. Not cash heavy. House money.

I go for more beers. Gotta spend. The toaster is paid. Confirmation biased. Momentum.

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

There is a possibility Binance may no longer stick to their initial decision not to block Russian crypto wallets. The stands they take are good, because this is not what crypto was made for. The decision may lose them market share. Despite they're centralized nature. Still, pressure to the management continues, and you can no longer escape government regulation. There have been reports of numerous Russian accounts being closed. Mastercard and Visa no longer support Russian accounts. Due to this, all Mastercard and Visa Cards issued in Russia will not be available on Binance.

So Binance is just waiting up for other platforms/services to take stance on the current Russia-UK war? Well, it could be yes or no because neither they would be sticking out with their decisions earlier.
Somehow it is true that there might be some change of minds when they do saw that everyone do really cut off ties with Russia and all possible services and other things which they might
be going along with the herd but we dont actually know on whats on the mind of CZ as of this moment when it comes to this issue.

Binance and even the other exchanges will act neutral and that they are supposed to do, otherwise they are getting involved in the war which is not.
Binance made the right decision, might blocking their account can be possible if that is used illegally if found but as long it was not, there is no such ground of freezing their account. That I hope the other will take responsibility as well as people from Russia are still good users, though not all of them. It wasn't their take and Binance can't afford to do it coz they know a lot of people from Russia will get affected.

But even if it happens, not all of them do KYC, they can't still block them all.

Crypto is neutral but I think we're missing one important thing here that this is what CEX was made for. To be controlled by the government and if this issue persists Binance will be forced to block all Russian customer crypto wallets.
Hope the wise citizen of Russia has already moved all their crypto out of CEX.

On crypto related services?

Why should Binance lock Russian customer's account? People in Russia do not want war either, it's not their decision, why blame them for this?
Binance is taking the right move.

The people in Russia actually brought the situation to an open military invasion of Ukraine themselves by allowing Putin to be in power for more than 20 years and at the same time completely control both the government and the country's legislative body. In fact, he now single-handedly controls the Russian Federation. A significant part of Russians supported Putin's actions when he seized the territories of neighboring countries, including Ukraine in 2014. Therefore, the fact that truly innocent residents of Ukraine are now dying at the hands of Russian invaders is a great fault of absolutely all citizens of Russia. The international community has no other leverage than economic pressure on the aggressor country as a whole. This should, among other things, force the Russians to do something with their dictator.
Binance refused to block Russian accounts only because it was approached by unauthorized persons and in the wrong form. This can be fixed.

Personally,,, I care less about what people and companies say and "show" and more about what their policies truly show real action and real impact.

I support the efforts and I totally agree that the war should never have happened in the first place but I am 100% sure that Binance banning Russians would hurt 99% innocent people (in my mind it is even 100% innocent people).

McDonalds closing 850 stores in Russia so what. Any brand who has bad practices and evades tax does not fix it by "not supporting" Russia.

Who controls Russia and China is matter of concern for native people only not outsiders. Putin and Chinese Communist Party have done hard work to bring there countries to the rank of super power, thats something west and USA ignored while doing propaganda againest them.
We need to see both side of pictures before making a final conclusion as its takes two hands to clap. Ukraine must not have provoked Russia to level of this attack.
Why should Binance block Russian accounts? Did Binance or other big financial institutes of time blocked USA accounts when they attacked Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria?

Provoked? Are you aware that you are siding with the ones that started a war and killed thousands of innocent people? Did Ukraine even shot a single bullet? No. You can talk about whatever Ukraine did on paper, or on talking, or anything and NONE of them deserves a bullet. Do you shoot anyone in the head if they say something you do not like?

Plus, Ukraine is an openly democratic and independent nation, if they want to join Nato, they can, if they want to join EU, they can. It is their right as a nation to do whatever they want to do and Russia has no say over another nation.

So just to repeat, Ukraine as an independent nation that has absolutely no reason to listen to Russia, said they wanted to join Nato, and Russia killed thousands of innocent people and you think that "Ukraine shouldn't provoked Russia"? I hope that you would realize how bad it is what you just said, you should not say things like this, it is wrong.

This is a war between two governments, which has nothing to do with innocent citizens. Binance did the right thing, neutral attitude. Even though Binance is a regulated centralized exchange, that doesn't mean they will do whatever the government wants. Their policy is to protect user's rights and users in Russia really they did nothing wrong here. There is no good reason for them to ruin their reputation.

You have to take into account some things, that Binance is Chinese in nature and China has a lot of cohesion and is an ally of Russia, so the chances of blocking it are almost zero, also that it would take over a much larger market such as Russia, then At the business model level, I am sure that it will be very juicy to have that monopolization, also assuming that the nature of the BTC market as well as that of the crypto market is that it is not affected by any government or bank, nature can really come to the fore here of everything.

There is nothing to connect the decision of Binance with China - Russia relationship. As per my understanding Ukraine vice Prime Minister request major crypto exchanges to block addresses of Russian users. This has been the issue, and immediately Binance responded. It has frozen the accounts of people/individuals, who all are in the sanction list.

There is nothing wrong with this. There is a difference between hating Russia and hating Russians. One of them is a political stance against a government that is attacking an innocent nation and killing people, the other is a racist argument to make based on just one politician that hates every citizen of that nation.

I personally believe that if Binance doesn't want to, they are a private entity and they should be allowed to do whatever they want. If they wanted to ban, that is fine too, they are private company and can do whatever they want, if they do not want to then that is fine too, it is their business to do as they wish and we should not be forcing them to do anything.

Good work against russia,When this Country Financial Block stop WAR