Bitcoin Forum

Reuters has published an investigation where they claim that Binance worked tightly with Russian government, including helping them track donations to opposition politicians (https://www.reuters.com/technology/how-crypto-giant-binance-built-ties-russian-fsb-linked-agency-2022-04-22/)

Binance made a statement where they denied all allegations (https://www.binance.com/en/blog/leadership/binance--russia-openness-transparency-and-honesty-421499824684903741)


When you are using a centralized exchange, you are trading your privacy for convenience. Assume that everything that you share with them - your ID, your address, your photo, all your transactions and trading data, will be shared with third parties. It can be your own government, foreign government, private companies and so on. And you never know what consequences it can have, maybe someone will decide to "cancel" or prosecute you over a transaction you did 10 years ago?

This is alarming because I know that Binance also donated funds to Ukraine to help those in need and recover. But the facts that Binance put forward are convincing because they did help analyze data towards cybercriminal rings, and they did do good on that. So, what benefit would they get in providing data to Russia? Unless there's something more underneath it all.

Fuck Binance. Handing over the data of anti-corruption activists and politicians to Putin's party, so they can be allowed to keep operating in the country. The actions of real cypherpunks. ::) Navalny has been poisoned by Putin's government, and is now being tortured in jail after various sham trials. Binance literally putting their own profits ahead of actual human lives. Absolutely disgusting behavior. I think it's time for a #deletebinance campaign.

Binance also made a statement denying they had been hacked for KYC data, shortly before thousands of their customer's KYC data appeared on darknet markets.

Russian government would have banned Binance in Russia if they refused to cooperate.


The fact that Binance is not banned in Russia after donating to Ukraine and helping with NFTs for Ukraine could be viewed as circumstantial evidence that they indeed work with Russian government. Because Russian government have closed "extremist" sites like Instagram and Facebook over their support for Ukraine and refusal to fully comply with Russia. With this logic they should have banned Binance for donating to Ukraine, which according to Russia is a Nazi country that kills Russians.

It can also be to terrorists, theives and illicit online criminals or sold to third parties. Data hack is also very common, it happens several times in just every year on different exchanges.

This is shocking, I wanted to post how Binance has said it is a false claim before but it would be wrong this time with the OP, I thought the exchange would have integrity but now this shows us how no integrity is involved. I am very confused about this, the best that can be done is to never provide personal documents on exchanges or others that are requesting for it, this would be a peace of mind by not giving your data out to avoid any doubt that may come up like this. If no data was given, nothing like this would happen, but people will always be people, they like to go the wrong way by providing their person details to politics and selling. If Binance truly did that, that means they sold the data which can be in multi million dollars.

I would say that someone in this story is lying, because Gleb Kostarev, who is the main man of Binance for Eastern Europe and Russia, actually admitted that he handed over the data to Russian security agencies, while the great boss CZ claims that he has no idea, or that is not true. I am not at all surprised by this business practice by a Chinese company that has very friendly relations with Russia, even though they try to present themselves as humanitarians who donate to Ukraine at the same time.


The logical conclusion is that Binance is more valuable to the Russians because of something, regardless of the fact that they donate to the side with which they are at war. I would not be surprised if all the private donations that go through Binance to Ukraine are not shared with Russian security agencies.

I am hoping this is just fake news and I'm glad that Binance already released a statement that they allegation because this will affect their exchange, especially they have BNB altcoin which their centralized exchange is the biggest player why BNB is soaring in terms of price and trading volume.

People should be aware that this is the biggest threat when using centralized exchange, especially undergoing KYC. Glad to know that there are already a lot of decentralized exchanges nowadays.

I heard about that news. Reuters claims that they have a document about the conversation of the email between the company with Binance. But I do not know the truth and if I am not mistaken, Kostarev on his Facebook page says that the news is not right. It is impossible for him to give the data to Rosfin or FSB. The situation becomes unpredicted while Binance does not want to freeze the user from Russia because Binance wants to build and expand his business in that country.

Binance being a trusted exchange as well as one among the most used platform based on the service it has been providing. Every beginner to cryptocurrency used to first talk about Binance, because it is that popular. Such a much reputed company should not get into these kind of cheap politics. None is sure to what extent this information is true. If this is true, surely it is contemptible. In what way Binance gonna profit out of providing users data. Also Reuters won't reveal news without proper evidence.

Of course and they do. They're already selling everyone's data. Would they say no if they were going to be removed from Russia?

Besides privacy, which is seen as an object of exploitation and blackmailing from Binance, you're also trading your right to move your money wherever and whenever you want. On top of that, you're charged 50k sats each time you transact for confirming you're agreed under these unpropitious conditions.

The best IQ test is with intelligence quotient. The second best is with which way you're using bitcoin.

In the same way Google, Facebook and every other company that possesses millions of people's information do. They're going to sell it in bulk to private companies which will later analyze it and resell it, or directly to governments.

Déjà vu


2018 Mar 22, 2018:
https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/976783934074732544


Mar 23
Crypto exchange Binance ordered to suspend operations in Japan (https://www.ft.com/content/4331aee0-2e75-11e8-a34a-7e7563b0b0f4)

It's not going to be that fast but how long do you think it will take to find out all the data at Binance has a clone on the FSB's servers?

7 oligarchs have committed suicide this year, 2 just last week, and you're telling me that guy (Gleb Kostarev) still lives in Russia, has no problem with tea, windows, fires one year after denying them access to the servers, and to all the data of the customers?


And now imagine some Russian guy has used an address linked to his Binance account to donate some coins to an Ukrainian fund



Staying alive and continuing business? Or face the consequences?

Could of just been a PR stunt so to make them look good in the eyes of global leaders.
I remember reading something about CZ working with the Chinese government but can't recall what that was. So it must of not been that important and just white noise when it comes to this exchange.
They tend to bend to the will so to whitewash their reputation and look good to all who they want to have deals with and intend to in the future.

I don’t believe CZ is going to do that because he knows that integrity and trust is something that he needs to hold on more than what he has. We need more truth to this one, but so far I do not believe in this news that would just simply cause panic to the entire crypto market, especially for those who are using the Binance exchange. But of course, the truth will be uncovered later on but right now I do not believe that Binance is going to do that to cooperate with the evil Russian government.

Providing your personal data to exchanges is not the smartest idea, much less supporting opposition activity in a country with a dictatorship from a verified account. I don't think that Binance is such a reliable exchange that you can trust your passport to it, especially since there have already been cases of leakage of personal data from there. Binance did not admit it then as well as now.

Exchanges and any other centralized services - ETFs, funds etc - make all utility and benefits of using Bitcoin to be destroyed. All Satoshi wanted was for people to be able to transact P2P, without trusted third parties and in a decentralized system. The use that a large part of the world makes and that generates the biggest ''big'' news is completely against everything.

And the biggest problem for me is that when we use cryptocurrencies ''wrongly'', the risks are even greater than those of the traditional economic system. We are greatly complicating our situation, in terms of privacy and security.

I did research quite a bit on it and they are the second-largest volume in trading next to China. So they wouldn't want that for sure. This could be the strong arm or something.

Probably there's something underneath, hmm.

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It could've been. As long as they make it seem that they are doing good, they do it. I hope there are no more scandals on it or something because it's not great to have that with an exchange like Binance. Kinda sketchy

Well, now it is Russia that is killing the Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine, and by the hundreds and thousands. The Russians invaded Ukraine, apparently with the aim of freeing their Russian speakers, who live compactly in the Donbass, from some mythical "Nazis". But now, with the help of artillery and rockets, they are making scorched earth, almost completely destroying settlements on their way. Russian speakers are now cursing the Russians. After the war, I think the issue of the Russian language on the territory of Ukraine will be unambiguously resolved in favor of Ukrainian.
Putin, like no one else, unwittingly did a lot of good things for uniting the Ukrainian nation, and indeed for uniting NATO.
As for Binance, it is quite possible that this exchange cooperates with all parties at once. But for now, these are just speculations.

Russia, China, USA... It doesn't matter who gets your data. Once you use any of those centralized exchanges, somebody will take a peek at your actions. Same with the banks. Every purchase you made is recorded and will be used against you when needed.

That's why you shouldn't be too "careless" with you crypto purchases. If you are doing something you shouldn't be doing, then you better take serious precautions or don't do it all.

There is always something more to what's shown in the surface. Businesses, just like people, always maintain a different face in the public and another when in closed doors.

What benefit? Well, not only is Binance still doing business in Russia, it has actually experienced growth ever since the invasion began. Or perhaps, as Kostarev mentioned, "he didn't have 'much of a choice' in the matter." We all know how Russia works.

Binance itself admitted that they are "actively seeking compliance in Russia." And if we look at Binance's track record, it is not unimaginable that they would easily give in to, in their own words, "appropriate requests from regulators and law enforcement agencies."

Binance donating funds to Ukraine is nothing but a PR stunt. Not that many others are not guilty of the same thing of course...


They want to be able to operate in Russia so of course they will do whatever its needed to keep the status quo, as simple as that. And they will do the same thing for any other country that has big enough market.


Ferengi Rule of Acquisiton: "Let others keep their reputation. You keep their money".


Binance is ready to cooperate with any government, that's just how all exchanges operate, especially those that are as ambitious as Binance and are getting into everything.

Am quite surprised as well that Binance could do such, although this shouldn't be a surprise in other way if we are to consider how privacy is not priotize in centralized exchanges but i never expected such action to be from Binance of all, what i know initially was how US work in hand with centralized exchanges in tracking and revealing Russians Crypto transactions and placing embargo on any account traced to be from Russia, but having it turned the other way round is questionable on Binance else this time around, Binance will not go away with it in having sanction from US as in the case Bitriver.


I hope that Binance should not embark on what can lead to tarnish it image on the level of reputations it have developed, still yet I want to believe this isn't real, because one thing am very sure of is that if US finally find out that such is true, then Binance have to start getting ready to face serious challenge, also even if Binance where to do such i believed it should be in favour of Ukraine and not Russia, else something is really fishing beyond ordinary.

For some reason, I am not surprised, even though the exchange is number 1 in the world, but it often bends with regulators, so there is no certainty that they did not do it.Once again, I am convinced that you need to use dex exchanges and no one has any questions.

I don't really trust the most reliable exchange, data is certainly a strong factor to be easily transferred at any time if Binance wants to continue operating in Russia. In addition to reporting, Reuters also continues to provide information in the form of strong evidence. At least justify with many references. First, the UK-based Reuters company and the UK conflict with Russia are clearly not going well. What if as a trigger to play each other so that more and more people think Binance really has harmony with Russia. Anything can happen, political friction can easily be played out in the media.

This is an eye-opener really, and this actually brings out the problem with the new KYC norm that every exchange has these days, the data that the exchanges hold isn't secure at all, it is traded in the open market and is misused for sure, I remember there was a new project working on providing decentralized KYC, from where your data is stored in blockchain and can't really be misused by the exchange, but that project didn't really pick up great steam because exchanges didn't want to lose a great chunk of revenue which they get from selling data of users, but really there is a great market potential of such a project where data can be stored securely and cannot be misused.

If it's true, it's very sad and disappointing because I though Binance was being cool about the war. Not only did they donate 10 million to Ukraine, but they also made a charity foundation, basically encouraging others to donate, and they just recently set new limitations to Russian accounts with over 10,000 USD worth of money, in accordance with the sanctions. They do have a terrible ToS which allows them to share data pretty much the way they want, but helping a totalitarian government crack down opposition is just so not cool. Binance's explanation and published communication is quite lengthy. So I don't think that they willingly helped Russia with its political prosecutions. Maybe people were indeed prosecuted, and Binance was involved, but didn't realize that...

We are hopeless here, likely still Binance wondering to serve Russia and that's the reason they were forced to hand over user data to the government. That's the most disadvantageous and disappointing thing we have to encounter when using a centralized exchange. All the centralized exchanges will do the same, not only Binance. Blaming them not gonna change the fact of a centralized exchange. We should think about using dex, but the prevention is a Liquidity and complicated process. People become familiar with centralized exchange even though there is risk of sharing privacy.

Great news. Now people will finally realize that centralized exchanges are not their friends at all. There are real vile traitors pretending to be friends. Under no circumstances should trust them.

I'm afraid that even after this incident, many will still continue to use Binance. Only when users are directly touched by this problem will it have the desired effect, but it will be too late.

This is a real betrayal by Binance of its customers. It was expected, but it still seems unbelievable.

Why is Binance making headlines once again for the wrong reasons?? Could these allegations be some kind of indirect assault from its competitors or this is news that can be backed by facts??

And if these guys are found with a case to answer for misuse of data, what's  the worst that can happen to Binance?

Btw talking of Russia, isn't it Binance that refused to bar Russian clients from its platform when they said they have quite a large clientele from that part of the world  ::)

Does binance provide opportunity for private fundraising or donation asides in ICO? It does not just tally. If Binance really did that, that is conspiracy. The same binance denies America many information yet release to Russia because of threat. Their are chances Binance have dirty linens that they dont want Russia to expose, the information is traded at a cost that may be confidential to Binance.

Someone said that CEX like Binance exchange et al will in no distant future resembles our today's banks in how they treat customers but there is hardly any thing that can be done about them because they are fast becoming a necessary evil.

Many exchange users don't actually care about cryptocurrency, they're more interested in making profit from trading or even holding so they're ready to sacrifice their privacy.

everyone knows that centralized exchanges suck, but what choice do people have? use decentralized exchanges? and what would it be like if everyone used it? how would people with fiat buy bitcoin? how would people withdraw bitcoin to fiat to use in the real world? How would institutional investors enter the cryptocurrency market? would they buy like without using a bank? everyone uses centralized exchanges because it's the only way they can buy using their country's bank.

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about russia, honestly i am not shocked by this news since the owner of binance and chinese and of course china and russia get along very well, so it's not surprising these kinds of things, surprise would be if he sold the data to the US government USA. Another point, I've asked myself several times why the hell do we have to KYC on these anonymous and unlicensed exchanges and physical writing? are they complying with the law of which country? so I'm not shocked by this news of him selling data, this was something expected

These centralized exchanges can't do anything but follow the laws and regulations of the countries they want to do business with. Hence, whatever the government is mandated to them, they will follow. So if you want to maintain privacy regarding your crypto transactions, then, limit your transactions with CEXs. And it is true, most of these traders are after for the profit, so they don't care if they are sending their kyc docs to these exchanges.

I doubt that these are just fabricated stories coming from Binance's competitors. We all know how Binance does business. They could easily change tune anytime. Binance is a chameleon. It could not be trusted, not with your money and not with your personal information.

It's not about the worst that could happen to Binance. It is about the worst that could happen to Binance users especially those who have made donations to Ukraine's cause. They have to be very careful now that their chosen exchange has sold their identities to the devil.

Binance refused to bar Russian clients. That must be part of the deal.

look at how coinbase employees buy up pump and dump new listed coins, im sure all the big exchanges rob their customers with 50 different tricks

That is very true. There is always a possibility which Binance is more into business, they will always cooperate with governments for them to continue operating. It doesn't happen just only in Russia but in every country where Binance has office, they will comply with the government's demand.

For the users, I guess there is nothing we can do about it. BTC 10 years ago is not very valuable, it would be tragic to be sued jailed for a transaction you did 10 years ago.

Unfortunately, this is a process that we cannot stop. Over time, more and more different exchanges will cooperate with certain authorities of various states in order to stay afloat and continue to conduct their business and earn profit. I believe the information that Reuters wrote. I would like decentralized exchanges to continue to exist so that we have some choice. But we see that the chances of this are decreasing.

There isn't a single doubt that Binance and any other centralized exchange is handing over their entire user data to governments, note that it is plural and is not just Russia. They have never hesitated in doing so either. You think the dictators in Canada or US didn't receive detailed activities of all their citizens specifically the protesters that had an account on Binance or any other CEX?

Is it Binance in the headlines or is it Russia in the headlines? I think it is the later. If they can hit two birds with one stone (bash Russia and bitcoin at the same time) they won't hesitate.

I think they are already far worse than banks. If your bank locks your account or seizes your funds, then in most countries you have legal protection and routes you can go down to have your account and your money returned to you. If an exchange locks your account or seizes your funds, wave goodbye to your coins. If a bank scams you or goes bankrupt, then your money is probably protected or insured. If an exchange scams you or goes bankrupt, wave goodbye to your coins.

Thankfully, centralized exchanges are not a necessarily evil. I've been involved with bitcoin for years, and actively buy, sell, trade, and spend it, and have never used a centralized exchange. With the ongoing growth of DEXs, both in terms of number and in terms of volume, centralized exchanges might be convenient, but they are not necessary.

Yes, exactly that. Use DEXs.

There are plenty of DEXs out there which support fiat/bitcoin pairs.

Sure, institutional investors won't be able to use a DEX, but we are not institutional investors.

They could choose not to hand over details of individuals to human rights abusers who will likely arrest, poison, or torture them in order to be allowed to continue to make more profit.

A few weeks ago and after the war started between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian government has shown many green lights to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies while a few days before that, they were going to suspend the bitcoin and cryptocurrencies according to some articles true or false, but right now since Binance is one of the biggest cryptocurrencies exchanges that's really normal to see the Russian government is trying to somehow take information from them including the user's data, here I would say the best thing is to stay away from these exchanges where you have to share the personal information to pass the pass, but I don't think of Binance is going to share this information, especially with the Russian government.

I believe in binance. They can't do this because they are the biggest and the most trusted exchange. They won't let their reputation go down the drain by doing such practice and in fact Russia is being avoided by everyone else including crypto exchanges because of what they did with Ukraine last time so why will they help this country?

But, you as a user of a centralized exchange, you must already know the consequences. Your details can be seen by the platform that you are using and it can be leaked whenever the site got hacked or the site can sell it to someone else intentionally and they won't let you know for sure. They can also deny some allegations if someone suspects them of doing it.

Unfortunately this is completely true, the Russian-Ukrainian war revealed many of the disadvantages of third-party services, especially privacy, I do not rule out the validity of this news because recently there was a problem with the Metamask application, which claims to be a decentralized application (maybe everyone heard of it), but unfortunately after the Russian war they banned many From Russian users or who live in pro-Russian countries, this is a third-party service application that is supposed to be decentralized and cannot access user data, but unfortunately it turns out that this application can access users’ data and does not maintain privacy. Exactly the same for Binance!!!

Binance denied the alligation but I don't think binance can really do that, also I don't think they can be trusted, they already have all our details so it can be leaked by any of their staffs that have access to it. All I know is that if you are making use of centralized exchange just know that your details is in public already.

Binance is a popular exchange around the world. The CEO of Binance has done a very good work in giving money to Ukraine.I will not say it is bad. But he should have remained neutral. Because its exchange is being used all over the world.Here, donating to Ukraine has created a rift between Russia.While this is a worrying fact, it is true that Binance needs it Paid Ukraine.This kind of help Binance always does.

Some people trust Binance stating that it won't get into such activities, whereas some had mentioned afterall they're into business. There is possible chances of data getting leaked through employees as binance have denied it. I have a doubt upon its new feature addition to support the Ukrainian refugees. Binance has launched a crypto card. This lets refugees from Ukraine make crypto transactions as well as receive funds through the Binance Visa Card. Maybe this can be an addition to cover-up the complaint against binance.

Binance announces crypto card for Ukrainian refugees (https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-announces-crypto-card-for-ukrainian-refugees)

People don't care about their privacy. They still behave like they deal with banks with an important level of trust. Wile it's not the case here.
"not your Keys, not your Coins" isn't a comfortable idea for most of us because no one like to get the risk of loosing the keys so they prefer paying somebody to hold them for fees. But sometimes, the fees are much higher than the staked funds especially when talking about the users personal information saved in the exchange servers.

Binance paying 75$ to each Ukrainian who's data will be leaked to the FSB, name address, phone, where he is, his email, his Twitter account as lately Binance also collects those,  and for sure what he has bought.
Now let's assume Ukraine falls, or better not...!


You've believed them when they claimed they will not be shut down in China, when they claimed they haven't lost their license in Japan, when they claimed they have been granted one in Malta, when they denied for a week about the first data leak only to blame it on somebody else after, when they lied about not being under investigation by the SEC?

Reputation, lol..
They can issue some shitcoin and buy with it all the reputation they need from people with short memory

One of the con's you would really experienced out when you do deal up with centralized exchangers or on the time you had verified yourself into these platforms on which there would be always chances that those
information would be exposed out if its needed and theres nothing we could do about it whether Binance would coordinate with some countries or not but its likely that they would really be doing so if its really
needed but its good to know that Binance had denied these allegations but we dont know if they had actually done it behind the curtains.

Obviously the leakage of personal data from a centralized trading platform is a consequence for anyone who agrees to the current terms of service of a centralized exchange. We can't completely trust a centralized exchange for anything we consider private like KYC but when we agree to those terms then we shouldn't blame anyone here.

One of the good things is that Binance has denied the allegations, but anything can still happen behind the scenes. This means we will still be insecure with any centralized exchange for personal data security.

I used Binance once to transfer out some Dogecoin and the whole experience was very off putting. They make it convenient to transfer lots of coins in, it was once of the largest exchanges at the time which supported selling Dogecoin, but the interface outside of the trading platform is designed to frustrate the user at every turn. They put several unnecessary layers in if you try to move any funds outside of the platform - I got to the "final step" at one point and they froze the funds, which involved a very nerve racking experience waiting for support chat staff to answer why. On top of all that they used a fixed fee system, which had not been updated since Bitcoin was worth much less, so they had extortionate charges for low level transactions, again this was designed to capture users and keep them on the platform. All around the experience was more bad than good.

This will ruin their reputation, I don't think they will. They had previously stated that they were not in favor of war and would be on the side of neutrality. It is hard to believe that this news happened to the most prestigious exchange in the world.

Metamask is a decentralized application, they have the power to ban users in Russia from using their product but they will not be able to prevent users from using the assets through another non-custodial wallet. You can use any non-custodial wallet with seed phrase generated from metamask and you have full access to your assets without any difficulty.

They will deny the allegations despite being involved in these matters because why would they not defend such accusations against them as public image is ruined with it.But deep inside we all know these centralised exchange will do anything to make their profits and keep running their business.They also limits Russia users on EU sanctions and also sell data to Russian agencies so it feels like some deep political conspiracies with dirty games.

What Happened? Is this some kind of extraordinary event?
Any major exchange cooperates with the intelligence agencies of the countries where it operates. And most importantly, it is written in the user agreement.
Have you forgotten Snowden's story and how Apple passed the data of Americans to US intelligence agencies?
I heard a speech from a Binance representative at a conference in Russia. He said that the transfer of such big data requires special protocols, trained personnel and data centers that will process a lot of information and verify it.

Lets not make a tragedy of what Binance did or might not did. Every time you flash personal data, you should take responsibility, that your data will be provided or used against you. Binance covertly cooperates with every country and finance institution. These bastards will provide everything to cover their asses.

Binance sharing its users information to Russia is a very big blow and woe on them. Intriguing and sharing People’s privacy online is a big cyber crime that shouldn’t be condoned. Especially when this is done at the expense of their own benefit. More investigation  should be carried out on this to know how true this is. Its users will begin to decrease and wouldn’t be a trusted exchange platform anymore. I always trust Binance and its mode of operation, but one need to be more careful with information and data we share online with them.

You must have worked with banks that are much better than mine. I rather use binance over my bank any day of the week. Maybe they did share this data with Russians and that could be truth but I seriously doubt it's the truth, I believe that it is just a way of media bashing binance one way or another, they have done that plenty of times before. Why would Binance share data with Russia, what could they gain?

You think money would be good enough reason? These are the guys that make over a billion dollars a month (probably) and what could Russia offer to disrupt that? It is probably propaganda against crypto exchanges and I believe they are not even close to banks.

I agree with you, I am one of the people who frequently use binance to carry out their daily operations, and this news leaves me somewhat perplexed, since we all know well about the sanctions imposed by binance towards Russian citizens. These and legal companies with crypto assets worth more than $10,800 on the platform are subject to the limitations.

Even recently I saw a news that now this sanction escalated to the Russian elite, Binance commented that
They also indicated that they had blocked Kirill Malofeyev, the son of Konstantin Malofeyev, a Russian oligarch previously accused of violating US sanctions. Total cryptocurrency capitalization this week was $1.74 trillion.
https://i.imgur.com/VOlYQTh.png?1

And with these new sanctions, we just have to wait how it could affect the market.

Source: https://bitcoinist.com/binance-bans-accounts/

The moment when we turn on the internet our privacy is getting compromised here and there.
There are logs stored for everything on the internet and with just few clicks the expert minds can invade our privacy.
It's as simple as that. When we register ourselves on such centralized exchanges everything is getting stored on their servers.
This includes our IP address, browser information, OS information, cookies, cache etc... This is when the user hasn't even done the KYC yet.
So much of useful information already. It can be used to easily manipulate and gain control at some level in our devices.
We can't even imagine what they can do when they have all our info from KYC we do.
Nobody can be trusted on the internet and this includes centralized exchanges like Binance too.
So I wouldn't be shocked if they sell our data to Russia or some random 3rd party. We have to deal with it.

That's exactly why I am wearied of these exchanges asking for too many information to get you KYC'd. The internet is a marketplace and these information can get into the wrong hands.
It is possible these information were hacked from Binance site, I don't see Binance leaking these information themselves.

Standard behavior for Binance. Open an account - no problem. Deposit fiat - no problem. Trade that fiat for various coins, and then trade those coins back and forth for weeks - no problem. Try to withdraw your money - you've been flagged for "suspicious activity", your account is locked, your coins are frozen, we demand ridiculous KYC.

Or to trick newbies in to using their centralized scam chains.

Both direct payment and being allowed to continue to operate in Russia. There is no limit to how low some companies will sink or who they will sell out when there are profits to be made.

Am hearing such claim on Binance the second time, first was on the allegations that it involve in revealing Ukrainians privacy and block some transaction while an alleged claim was laid on Binance before time to have place sanction Russia in other to fight in support for Ukraine thereby contributing to enforcing the saction over Russia.



If found yourself among the affected one what would you do? absolutely nothing and there's nothing you can take as evidence or weapon to fight against the government, because as individuals you lack the jurisdiction in fighting a strong exchange like Binance not to talk of filing a suit against the government which is apparently impossible, the only safety rile to play here is to avoid centralized exchanges in their entirety.

They could leaking the information without anybody noticed about that.

and when they caught up , they would of course telling everyone that it's been hacked .. or else the smarter move now by stated it was in the correct procedure and nothing shared but a cooperation then blame those who against them that they are wrong or mistakenly interpreting their policies, classic and readable move. i hate them as well

If the allegations mentioned above is true, then that means Binance didn't actually try at all, because I know very well that in every allegation there is always an atom of truth in it, which we are yet to figure this out soon, as Binance keep denying. I am sure what Russia did to Ukraine was actually inhuman which everybody is against it, so if the world has actually told Binance to shut down its operation in Russia just for the few war moments to teach them a lesson for actually maltreating the people of Ukraine and yet decline but rather went further to share with Russian government the details of some crypto investors in Ukraine, then I will actually say what they did was actually a big fuck up to Binance because what that means is that we don't have privacy on Binance anymore again, which is why I don't like exchange with KYC verification

 

So does it mean Binance afraid to lose the trading volume on Russia by denying this issue? Ops, CZ seems to be desperate, if this allegiation were true. Im an old user of this platform, and it really sad to hear that the only platform I trust would resort to politician issue especially when it involves money. Anyway will follow the story.

If the accusation is true, Binance denies it in other not to lose its reputation and the trust of the crypto community.

There's a strong relationship between the Chinese and Russia. Judging by this the accusation could be true but I am surprised you totally trust a CEX platform that is always controlled by the FED and some Big brother which seems to be powerful.
Something good doesn't always come out of CEX and this is the reason why most decentralized enthusiasts don't like CEX.

Finance wars and war financing go hand in hand. Russians accuse Ukraine of selling soviet military technology. Now they track the Ukrainian finances. This is a very important lesson, you will be tracked, by governments, by financial institutions and by bogus bodies as well. Keep your digital identity safe, keep your crypto keys safe. Who knows they will be your biggest asset in your crisis times.

Binance has proven itself unworthy of investment and has potentially scarred of several future clients, all for what? Putin.
Musk please buy binance, lets put things in order... ;)

This allegation has been denied by Binance. If you want to trade in a centralized exchange, you must do KYC. However, it is not safe all the moment. In this concern it is better to use decentralized exchange.

I don't understand who demanded this data from binance, but according to the terms and condition, binance can share any data with the government, if the government demands legally.
This is unfortunately a risk with any centralized exchange who demands KYC. All our activities are tracked and can be shared with anyone.

There is not many options available in decentralized exchanges at the moment. If I wanted to do future trading or margin trading, does any decentralized exchange offers it? Even most decentralized exchanges don't have order books, they only have the swapping options.

It must always be remembered that finances are inseparable from politics. Power and money have always been inseparable. If someone hopes that the cryptocurrency will fall out of the sight of states, he is deeply mistaken. The influence of states on the crypto sector will increase as the position of the cryptocurrency strengthens.
Binance, like any cryptocurrency exchange, is located on the territory of a certain state and cannot ignore the requests of this state, otherwise it will be immediately closed. So it's all logical. Moreover, now the entire civilized world is uniting around Ukraine in order to curb the predatory appetites of the aggressor country, which is Russia, and it is very dangerous for Binance to ignore this and automatically rank as the defenders of the aggressor.

What we should ask ourselves is that is possible for binance to release their database to someone or a group of people who requested for it? From my view i don't think it's cogent or it will happen, it's obvious that if binance does that, no transaction of any one cryptocurrency is safe.

Then you're naive, no offense. We live in the age of information where everyone wants personal data. It's as valuable as money, because it gives you control. When you have millions of people's KYC data such as passports, driver licenses, pictures, phone numbers, email addresses etc., you can sell it to advertisers, chain analysis companies, other private companies, politicians, literally everyone. And do it again, and again, and again. There's no limit to reselling data.

Not only do they release their data once requested, but they are also getting breached very often. When you use such service, you should take it for granted that they will do these things, no doubt.

Yes, they can and I will advise you to go always read most CEX terms and conditions about their user data protection guidelines. You'll see a clear statement that they have every right to provide their user data to the authority at some point and this is the reason why most crypto community and privacy enthusiasts never like or support CEX.

How high is the posibility of someone  gonna be investigated by US government because he is closely working with someone from Russia's IP or trading on Russian exchange?  And what about if someone if not from US but in Latin country?

I can just see Binance account going to be frozen, if they find something suspicous to the account thats linked to Russia's high rank official. But what about a freelancer hired by a Russian employer?

I don't think with United State possibility for suspend account who working with Russia's IP because there are not on their controlling, but I was disappointed if this news true why Binance providing with costumer data publish to the third side. I think this politician important only how to stop Russia and give suspend effect on every site after economic punishment not working yet right now try with different way. I think not have worry although Russian member will be safety with their account with Binance not connected or registered with United State country, the United State government not have enough power how to suspend with Binance account created with Russia IP.

Believe it or not, people don't care whether their identification documents get revealed in public or not. Me and you can't imagine why someone shouldn't care about that but when I ask my friends why they blindly send KYC on every website's request, they answer me: Why does someone need that? They can't use it in anything, they can't kill me, they can't rob me and they can't sell me.

People don't analyze the value of data in this world. They don't want to understand how the data helps giant and rich companies like Walmart to optimize product assortment, personalize the shopping experience and do some other things. At some point, that data can bring you comfort but at the same time it makes you so readable for companies, you carry zero value and are directly the target of their marketing and sales.

Binance is the last company you should trust in the crypto world. This is a great company for those who don't care about their own identity and personality, don't care about their own data and just want to use the comfortable service.

There are lots of things that could possibly get involved with if we do really talk about the general idea on linking in between Russian users which these freelancers could really might able to
put themselves into trouble or headaches just because of some false decisions or unjustified ones thats why i wont be surprised if there would be some complaints about this one.
Its really that hard to be imposed but if BInance would really be having that decision then there's nothing we could do about.

As far as I know binance has blocked russian accounts

In recent years Binance has a way of doing things in a very opportunistic way, because in Colombia they did something very similar, I think they are very arrogant to governments, banks and third parties and that will cause it to lose a lot of customers, this is a very negative attitude on the part of the Exchange, because the data they have should not be shared nixcomdos with anyone. they should respect that, fortunately there are much more exchanges that although they do not have the same trading volume at least they do not kneel to governments.

And then how do you get the money to/from your bank?

That's one of the major downsides of using a DEX - sometimes they are even less secure/transparent/private than the centralized exchanges.

The news is probably not a major security concern other than to Russians on a "list" defined by the Kremlin. For everyone else, it's a matter of your ID being shared with that government, but at least they're not going to be "found dead" somewhere because of this.

i only have accounts on some exchanges that don't require KYC because for me personally, privacy is the most valuable thing of all.  i even often do P2P trading to avoid withdrawing funds from centralized exchanges.  as you said, we don't know what will happen in the next 10 years, it's bad luck if the mistakes we made in the past ^{(following KYC)} end up being prosecuted in the future.

I can somewhat agree that it's less safe, in case you've drawn the attention of the bank/tax office, but I find this a fallacy.

It's far more private, which matters to your safety. The moment you hand out your selfies, phone number, email address, driver's license, home address, citizenship status etc., that very moment you will have lost every drain of privacy you could have ever had. Now you're on every analysis companies watchlist. You should take it for granted that they'll sell it to politicians, other CEX's, other data analysis companies etc.

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Not using bitcoin, by the same reasoning, is more safe from a government's PoV.

Am just going to speak neutrally, it is good that people want to stay private and all that but when you look at it from another angle, are people really living a private life in this day and age where social media is the order of the day? exchange is not the only way people share personal info.
What about people who publicly share and talk about there experience with crypto! are they in danger of some sort? if binance share this info must be because of a reason, i mean there are millions of people using centralize exchange since perhaps close to a decade now and so far am sure %10 have not been arrested by the authority.
Anyways, this is just my own perception, i don't know how many decentralize exchange can provide the same service the centralize exchange provides.

Your choice. How do you want to get the money to/from your bank? Direct bank transfers with your trading partner are the most common. If you don't like that, then you can use a huge selection of payment processors - PayPal, Skrill, Advanced Cash, Zelle, Western Union, Cash App, Venmo, MoneyGram, TransferWise, etc. Pretty much any one you can name. Don't like that either? Then trade in cash - in person, via mail, cash deposit to a bank account, etc.

Don't forget darknet markets. A significant number of users who have completed KYC at a variety of centralized exchanges have ended up with their information and documents for sale on the darknet. I challenge anyone who says they don't care about their privacy to try having their identity stolen and $100,000 of debt racked up in their name and not change their mind.