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Yes, You read that right. Binance has taken their bans against Russian people up a notch. Which is quite clever on one side and on the other, quite unfair. Imagine being on a different country miles away from Russia but having relatives there and you suddenly see that your account has just been banned from binance. That'd be pretty infuriating.

I really can't decide myself whether this action is proper or not.

For people out there though that get to read this post and may get affected by this, I advise that you start taking precautions and transfer to a different exchange.

Anyway, what do you guys think about this?


News link: https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-blocks-crypto-accounts-of-relatives-tied-to-the-russian-government

In war nothing is nice, nor fair, nor "proper".
I'd guess that Binance was nicely, but also officially, asked to block this or that. It's not the first time they obey official papers and lock users' funds.
Since the moment they started working together with the authorities and regulators (and no longer run from them), this kind of actions are pretty much expected, hence I'll even call them normal, I'll even consider them somewhat late.

These measures are meant to hurt russians and inflict injury on russia's economy. The motive is to put pressure on russians in an effort to persuade them to blame Putin for all of these harsh measures brought against them. This is a common tactic that is used in many cases in the modern era.

There is a chance that rather than divide or hurt russia. These measures could unite and solidify russian support behind Putin instead. I would be interested to know who russians hold accountable for these harsh measures. Do they blame Putin or foreign interests.

Russia has been hit with sanctions and similar measures for many years. Russians might have noticed how sanctions impact their standard of living and access to modern markets and goods, even before the invasion of ukraine. Before the conflict in crimea. Is this new for them?

Maybe this is counteraction to their government using cryptocurrency and they want to crumple them again for doing this actions.

We can say that Russia is really in trouble now and if more sanction will come to them maybe we can see Russia fall. Hopefully this one will not create any side effect to the whole crypto community.

The article starts with a spokesman's daughter having her funds locked on the exchange, this doesn't look like an attack on the Russian people but still the kremlin.

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Binance want regulation on the west because that's whereost of their exchange makes its revenue and that was the goal (hence they incorporated themselves in Singapore and not Hong Kong or China).

There are crypto exchanges in Russia that allow people to trade with rubles. Therell be crypto exchanges in countries like India that won't need to follow EU/UK and US sanctions that might also remain open for Russians to use.

Many will read this article as "Binance blocks crypto accounts of Russians". Does Russian government hold crypto on Binance? Looks bs to me. These guys have numerous bank accounts in offshore banks, filled with US dollars. Imho, with such action, Binance only harms their reputation. All Russian users will migrate from it during next few months.

This sometimes proves that Binance will do everything that is whispered to it from the outside. If now they are doing this with Russian officials who are objectionable to everyone, then in the future this can happen to everyone. I see this as a wake up call for all of us.

Oh common, before getting infuriated at least read the article!
It's not like the average Igor who has fled the country 30 years ago and still has some 7th-degree relative that has become a city council in Chekalin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekalin) is going to have his funds seized.


Let's see
-daughter of Mordor's spokesperson
-stepdaughter of the foreign minister
-son of an oligarch with a net worth of billions

So while they threaten everything western and discuss how even if they nuke the whole world they will be the only ones going to heaven they still try to use foreign services. Why not stick to their own exchanges and their precious rubles?

First, we don't know for sure if the Russian government holds crypto on Binance but with Binance being the most reputable crypto exchange in the market there's a chance for the Russian government to hold some crypto on Binance in spite of numerous crypto and fiat in offshore bank/crypto exchange.
But I don't see any reason why the Binance decision will affect their reputation or do you forget that Binance is a CEX, not DEX, and they have some rules and regulations to follow.

This is expected because when the rumor of Binance blocking Russian related accounts it's a sign that the decision may happen anytime and even if Binance don't want to do it their Master License holder will force them to take the action.

Instead of aiming as a forum for freedom of transactions, Binance finally showed some sides. regardless of the rules currently in force Russia could make several alternatives. As sanctions after sanctions have been imposed on Russia, the fact is that it is difficult for me to understand how until now Russia has been able to survive and carry out military operations. Is there any suspicion that this has all been prepared for a long time, so that it can ward off the sanctions that Russia has received little by little?

Binance was neutral from the beginning by not banning Russian Citizens. Doesn't matter they have donated to Ukraine, I will not consider them taken aside. Learned from the article, Binance banned accounts of the person who is under sanctions. Most likely it's pretty simple, it might be due to regulation and likely they are forced to do it. Though we don't know the reality, but it's not surprising actually.

For a  centralized platform then it is never that surprising on having these kind of decisions on which they could really always be having some decisions which would really been putting themselves into the position

on having no choice but to comply or else that would really be putting their business at risks which its not really that surprising that they do come along with the herd specially now that
majority is really against Russian government and there's nothing we could do about it if they do make out such decisions and its true that they are somewhat late for this one.

This is a typical action of a centralized exchange and playing with the political economy of the people. This is not the best for the cryptocurrency market. I think that avoiding this ban would have put binance in the good books. Binance has been a player of this kind of action trying to be involved in politics of the world.

For what its worth I Think on the part of those banned I think it’s unfair, being a relative to people from Russia wasn’t a personal choice it’s just nature, and it could be possible that some had their whole Crypto-currency savings in such accounts, I understand many companies are trying to use all this as actions to frown at the the Russian government to attack Ukraine. Well as the advice has always went, don’t keep your savings on an exchange its best to get a private wallet to store them, with all this it goes to show that big crypto exchange are fast going centralized and this is scary.

Are you sure this is true? Last I remember was Binance clearly stating that they won't ban any accounts of people from Russia. Now It's surprising and also ironic that accounts of relatives of Russian officials is being banned. I think there is no way you can trust these exchanges with your money, like I would obviously never want my exchange blocking my account because my distant relative did something. This is just too wierd, forget about being fair i feel it's stupid.

The bitcoin had helped the Russian government a lot during the war.So the people of the Russia had started to use the bitcoin for their personal use .The influenced of the American also impact the Binance .But it was huge confusing,Binance helped the Ukraine for the war.So I think,it was second help to the Ukraine by banning the Binance account of the Russian government relatives.

It was the move by the United States against the Russia.The Russian war had impact us the lot.Every where their was the huge economic crisis,people suffering to have their three day meals.It was boon to the poor people before,this move to huge people now.The cost of the all the household items also huge.This Binance moves will reduce the flow of bitcoin in the hands of Russian government.

So their first statement about not to get involve on those sanctions against Russia are now revised?

Well, I know Russia must be punished for their actions on invading Ukraine and ruining the life of innocent people but since this is cryptocurrency, this only proves that it is still centralized and you are on a big risk if you put too much money on CEX because it can be frozen any time especially if your government take actions like this which is beyond your control. Most probably, Russian people are already thinking about withdrawing their money on Binance and putting it on Hard wallet instead, let’s see the effect on this one on a so called Decentralized crypto.

The article says they are closely monitoring the accounts of Russian people, especially those who are close relatives of the government officials since they can commit finance crime which I think is really possible. Binance still commit about not closing the account of the innocent people, we don’t really know what’s the next move of Binance but for me, its better to be safe than to say sorry later on, it you’re Russian starts looking for good alternative on storing your cryptocurrency, if its CEX it can still be controlled by the pressure of the government.

Of course, what do you expect when CZ is been invited to many government dealings and in return for a green signal to operate without the interference of local watchdogs and regulators? I'm not in support of whatever wrongs that family may have done to upset the Russian government and the relatives but what least could anyone think will come out of any exchange that has made KYC a mandatory exercise for all his customers.

This is not the first we have heard about exchange freezing customer's accounts due to political and government collaboration, this should be a signal to others who are yet to do KYC on any exchanges like Binance.

Regardless of their relationship to the government official of Russia, Binance should not do this because this is cryptocurrency and this actions are really different from their first statement, for sure other countries also put big pressure on Binance to do this because if they don’t they will surely face consequences. Well, Binance is centralized so what can we expect? Once the US government tells them what to do they can’t say NO to that. Better to have a hard wallet after all, its too risky to trust CEX that much.

Binance is trying to appear the good guy vs regulators who have acted to restrict its business previously.   Its not really the nature of crypto to be pro active in this way vs people who may have nothing to do with what you intend to impede but I get why they think its a good idea.   Certainly all these sanctions must be some incentive regardless of personal politics to wrap up this war not continue in a pointless pursuit of destruction.

I was surprised when i heard somes news claim weeks ago about how the Russian government uses Binance to derive Ukrainians data and other dirty unrealistic claims as such is far from believing, i doubted bas well but not until I come across this, even though we can not be confident enough with data protection when dealing with all centralized exchanges but i so much believe in this in such a way that Binance adhere strictly to US, and it also evidently shows us, because Binance could not go beyond in support for Russia's human massacre on Ukraine in other for it not to receive ba global karma.

The war was very fatal for the citizens of Russia and Ukraine. Because politics in government is so chaotic that its citizens are subject to sanctions that the world has imposed on their government. Ukraine is seen as a victim because of the Russian invasion, but Russian citizens are also victims because of its government. I don't think this is fair, if it's the state that made the mistake of the chaos, then we have to look at the causes of the chaos. All countries want peace, but if there is a threat that endangers their country, everyone will take precautions. However, all that has happened, I also hope that our Russian brothers and sisters will soon take the opportunity to withdraw all their money on Binace. And reinvest in exchanges that don't interfere with world politics.

Well in this opinion am quite opposite thinker from so many.
I lnow their is a critical situation their in Ukraine and almost every one is supporting them but some companies qnd and individuals are using it as an opportunity to gain everyone's attention to gain popularity cashing big.
This type of hypocrisy even can be seen on western media channels where they are shouting each and every day against Russia but when USA use forces against different countries and interface in their personal matters they called it heroic action.

Binance is a private company so I don't personally see an issue with their selective denial of service to Russian affiliated accounts. I would just not the blatant hypocrisy of private entities seemingly caring so much about Russian human rights violations with the war in Ukraine while simultaneously denying human rights violations that occur in places elsewhere, like China and Uyghur muslims. It'd be nice if there was a consistent standard.


The problem is we don't know the daughter's affiliation with the direct war effort or Russian government. I don't think guilt by association is anything productive.

That's too funny how we hear news about the exchanges and the Russian government, just a few days ago I saw an article where people believe Binance is selling users' information to Russians and they have some collaborations together and now Binance starting to suspend the accounts how are related to the Russian governments, however, by doing this Binance will take a huge advantage because usually the Russian government related accounts are loaded and if they suspend these account there will be much-suspended money for Binance, however, I don't think if there are many Russian movement-related accounts on Binance because they usually prefer to do not reveal their real identity on these exchanges.

Bravo! Binance has joined the fight against the global sponsor of terrorism and global terrorist! And of course, it is necessary to block all possible "purses" through which there may be attempts to withdraw funds to avoid sanctions. This is fine ! When a criminal is caught, they can carry out operational actions with relatives and friends. In a word, thanks to Binance for a balanced and thoughtful decision! The exchange proves its stability and quality!

I think the move to do that was simple..... If someone is doing something that are blocked, their first strategy to circimvent that, would be to shift that wealth to a relative or a friend that are not targeted for those actions. You will always see that a "target" will use their wife or brother to launder the money or to store their wealth, until the focus is shifted away from them.

So yes, this move will just tighten the sanctions and close up the possible loophole that can be used to circumvent the sanctions. Is this fair.... Nope probably not... but you will have to ask yourself this question ===> Did the family or relatives benefit from the spoils of corruption and war mongering that provided them with their wealth?

I think binance as a CEX is allowing a total control of itself to be manipulated for reason to achieve the full short down of the Putin government. The names that their accounts have been banned are mostly supporters of Putin and they have also been banned by the US government. The picture is clear with the unfolding of the happenings going on with Russia and Ukraine with the NATO and EU influence.

That's true, but that saying usually only applies to what's happening in the military, not relatively small financial institutions, which is what I think Binance qualifies as.

Agreed.  I can't imagine that they'd do this on their own, although I don't really know much about Binance, who's in charge, and what their political leanings are (if any). 

And no, I don't think this is right at all.  Just look at this:


Global head of sanctions. 

Are any of us still concerned about privacy and centralization?  Or does any of that apply only when a crypto exchange is fucking someone else over?  What happens when an exchange suddenly finds a reason to target you for whatever reason they make up on the spot?  No matter what your opinion is about Russia, those people who got blocked probably weren't involved in any of the political decision making in Putin's circle when the war started.  This doesn't help anything, and frankly I've lost a ton of respect for Binance and whatever trust I had in them as an exchange is gone.

well, this is one of the negative effects of war. even, when you are not directly involved with them, but you are in the area, you can be affected. Apart from that, I think Binance is also being urged by regulations so that people immediately stop the war. Therefore, I also agree that people who feel connected to all of this should keep their assets safe from these exchanges. we don't know what kind of regulation there will be for Russia in the future in the international world. I hope that this is all over soon.

The idea of choosing in a conflict like this doesn't sound so well to me and I think that's what Binance did by blocking the Russians. And I think a move like this might backfires at a later time on Binance.

There may be valid reasons why binance is now blocking accounts tied to Russian government. One I think, is the tight regulations where they are operating. Because at the early days of war, binance was still servicing all users, whether you are a Russian or not. And now, they started to restrict their services. So they may also be preparing for the sanctions that are being implemented on crypto businesses that are still catering Russians and other relatives. We can't blame if they resort to this move. If by any chance you have relation with Russians, better secure your funds in your own noncustodial wallet.

I think this is the absolutely correct decision, the Russian users of crypto platforms have nothing to do with what the Russian government is doing. When Putin or the Russian government decided to invade Ukraine, they did not take the consent of the Russian citizens to do so. Crypto users have nothing to do with politics so they cannot be held accountable for the political mistakes of their governments. All exchanges that have banned Russian users should do exactly the same as Binance.

Your argumentation does contradict which you had said that they have nothing to do with political issues and argues but you do agree on what Binance had been doing?
They should do the opposite but we know that these platforms are regulated  which this is really just that subjective into particular laws and rules
which its understandable that even if Binance doesnt really want to do such gesture but they dont really have any choice for them to avoid or
ignore on whats mandated.

Whew, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who caught that contradiction.  I'm not sure if that member is just writing nonsense to boost his post count or doesn't understand English well enough to convey his opinion correctly.  Very weird.

In any case, I was thinking about this some more, and I wonder how people would feel if Theymos suddenly decided to ban all accounts from Russian IPs or a similar action.  I'm guessing opinions would be very much mixed, but my point is that sanctions against Russia as a country or even specific individuals who had no say in Putin's war end up hurting innocent people.  Maybe not all of them are, but certainly there are some who are innocent.  That's unfair, akin to holding hostages IMO.

The way I see it, only a few are left that truly cares about privacy. Specially now that mass adoption requires at least a bit of centralization.

And yes, I agree that what binance did is truly alarming. This just shows that binance has let go of it's last bit of consideration for the decentralization that this industry mainly stands for (other than fixing existing problems) in exchange of being able to freely operate and grow their business.

Although as a crypto holder and trader myself, I admit that I agree to compromise as well and disclose personal information just to be able make use of what I earn along with the profits I gain through trading since it is much easier to deposit when using fiat on centralized exchanges (specially on binance here in my country). Life is tough, it is  what it is. But that does not mean that I am willing to put up with all the crap an exchange does which can endanger my hard earned assets.

TBH, I right now am currently hopping from one exchange to another looking for the most crypto enthusiast friendly ones. Not that I am expecting much from centralized exchanges but at least a bit more reasonable approach and has some back bone to not make unreasonable bans or whatever unless the matter involves issues between the exchange itself and the user and not some outside variables like government conflicts etc.

See, if binance can do it to the relatives of Russian people, then it can certainly do it to me and the others as well. Only thing binance needs to do is make up an excuse and we can get ourselves banned right there and then.

I honestly do not use binance that much anymore. Except for depositing fiat or for trading alts that are not on other exchanges. although some of binance's features along with their earn sections were quite appealing to me back then, it is not that worth it in my eyes anymore after a few things that they did and also because of the fact that there currently are better offers on other exchanges nowadays.

If one day, another good crypto exchange becomes available here in my country that supports or has the features I need which binance currently has I'd definitely forget about the existence of binance.

Wow, this is a bit extreme, ... having somebody appointed as "head of sanctions"... I would be laughing if it wouldn't be as much concerning (as lame).
And about concerns on centralization... we both know that whoever keeps there more funds than he can easily lose, he deserves his fate. Not your keys, not your coins.

Agree, it is extreme.  I also can't imagine Binance would have appointed someone with that title had it not been for some governmental influence being exerted.  And just so no one misunderstands where I'm coming from, I'm not anti-Ukraine by any means.  I just think politics should be left out of places where it doesn't belong, and the world of cryptocurrency is one of them.

Again, I can't argue with that one bit--but we all know how important crypto exchanges are, whether you're leaving your coins on there or not.  If they don't care at all about what cryptocurrency originally stood for, then I'd say that's a major problem.

Ah so you want us to help you decide? Well, for me this action is improper because number one, Russian citizens are innocent and it wasn't their fault on why there is a war between their country and Ukraine.

Number two is, the person is away from the country of Russian but the sanctions are only supposed to happen under the country of Russia and I am curious if how they will know that the person is relative from those who live in Russia? Did the authorities force them to tell? And maybe they give threats that if they don't tell, the truth, something bad will happen to them. They don't have a choice and their relatives but to follow the order.

In a sense, maybe? lol. But yes, your opinions are greatly appreciated. :)

If I'm not mistaken, this was probably done with the goal of creating a wider scale assistance to the sanctions imposed on Russians. This may be an attempt to hinder other relatives of Russian people to still be able to evade the sanctions via crypto and so they extend the bans to relatives which would make it impossible for Russians to pass assets on relatives outside of Russia and make them do the trading, investing or liquidating.

And about the ways, I must say that what you're telling me right now is quite absurd. I mean, this can possibly happen(which I hope doesn't) but yeah, I think they just made use of the technology nowadays instead of resorting to such means.

If you read carefully, sanctions have been imposed:
- against companies
- industry
- against government officials and their relatives
- against natural persons and their relatives.
This was done for a reason, but in order to maximally block the possibility of avoiding punishment. Did you think the sanctions would be only against those whose workplace is indicated by the "Kremlin"? This is really stupid!
Now the Russians involved in crimes that surpassed the crimes of Nazi Germany will be "nailed down" like fleeing cockroaches from a garbage pit, wherever possible, wherever they are caught, by any available method - blocking any means, seizing assets, criminal prosecution.

Now that there are situations which you could possibly be tied up to have some relatives on Russia if you do make out in  between transactions then people would be aware and wont tend to make out any connections but its true that not all transactions would really be known if they are really that relative or something that do make out transactions totally in random or doesnt really know each other.
So its not really just that precise nor that accurate when it comes to pointing out fingers on who would be the one will really be that be affected with this decision.

I'm not a political person, and I dislike having political arguments but I feel exchanges are going the extra mile to harm people with the lock of accounts, it is not anyone's fault the governments in power are fighting themselves. I have seen a couple of complaints from Bitsamp exchange users that their account has been locked too with the deposit and withdraw option being disabled, that's so uncalled for but by the way, this is what you get in return when they tell you to stop using centralized exchanges but no one wants to listen.

 
This is true about CEX but i think every cryptopreneurs need to understand why they should be avoided, for me now, i know that using CEX will cost me than the benefits i stand to derive from using it, so I maintain my scope, what about others that don't know how to go about, neither does they know the difference between CEX and DEX, and i think as the adoption widens so are many user's getting exposed to knowing more about this, just a pity that some already fall a victim before realizing that.

Seeing the responses and thinking more about this, I really see this as a bad move by Binance. People trusted their centralized exchange and went through all the trouble of trusting and exposing their real identities to this exchange and in return Binance does this. Binance as an exchange specially one that is on this industry that values privacy and independence to some extent, should not be influenced or if needed be just a bit but not fully controlled by any government. I honestly expected Binance to at least have some backbone.

Well, we can't blame people who use centralized exchanges too since not everyone has access to reputable people or platforms that does peer to peer trading. Investing and converting to fiat is difficult for some places in the world and exchanges or custodial wallets that offer creditcard deposits or bank transfers are what most people prefer than risking to transact with people they do not know.

I agree. Even though I dislike Russians as much as the next guy, I do not think that it is a good way to approach this situation for a crypto company. We should be focusing a bit more on the side of the decentralized hands-off approach to crypto.

As a company they are burdened to follow whatever nations law they are following, and if there are sanctions there and they are told to freeze the accounts then there isn't much Binance could have done, but it is still not a thing they had to do, they could have given a warning before hand for people from Russia to withdraw their money and make a bit of a profit for them that way as well, since they would be able to withdraw their money beforehand.

Are Russian citizens innocent that their country, with heavy armored vehicles, invaded the sovereign state of Ukraine? Are they innocent that their husbands, brothers and sons are now massively killing truly innocent civilians in Ukraine and deliberately destroying schools, hospitals, residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure in Ukraine? And then who is to blame, only Putin? But he doesn't kill directly. He sends Russian citizens to kill Ukrainians, and the execution of a criminal order is also a crime. Moreover, even now, according to a recent poll, 73 percent of the Russian population supports Putin's actions in his genocide of the Ukrainian people.
No, all citizens of Russia are guilty of the fact that citizens of Ukraine are now massively dying and their economy is being deliberately destroyed. The people must control their elected government. If for some reason he cannot or does not want to do this, he is responsible for the actions of his government, which means that the people are to blame for the criminal actions of the one who runs the state on their behalf.