Russia blocks localbitcoins

[mk4]

While BisQ is mostly P2P, HodlHodl rely on single website/server, so it's also could be blocked by Russia government.

True. But regardless, I'd still recommend HodlHodl far more than LocalBitcoins simply due to the fact that HodlHodl doesn't require KYC(at least currently.. *fingers crossed*).

[Fundamentals Of]

Bitcoin is accepted in Russia but within a very limited number of use. Not included in the limited uses is being a currency or a form of payment.

The worse thing about the prohibition of Bitcoin being used as payment in Russia is that the order is quite wide that it also covers those crypto businesses which are somehow promoting Bitcoin as a currency. They are also included in the blacklist.

This is bad for Bitcoin as designed. Even if Bitcoin may grow in Russia it will never fulfill its purpose of being the people's money.

[Serious475]

Bitcoin is accepted in Russia but within a very limited number of use. Not included in the limited uses is being a currency or a form of payment.

The worse thing about the prohibition of Bitcoin being used as payment in Russia is that the order is quite wide that it also covers those crypto businesses which are somehow promoting Bitcoin as a currency. They are also included in the blacklist.

This is bad for Bitcoin as designed. Even if Bitcoin may grow in Russia it will never fulfill its purpose of being the people's money.

Even if russian people doesn't have a full control to their own bitcoin, it is not bad because bitcoin is not yet well recognized on their country and being able to use it on their country this early is a good thing. Bitcoin being people's money doesn't need to be goal on their country. If they don't want it to become the people's money then we should't force them and all we can do it to promote it on the other countries until all the country around Russia manage to make bitcoin a people's money then Russia are surely going to approve it.

[Rengga Jati]

The telecommunication authority of Russia Roskomnadzor earlier blocked Binance into Russia and added it to the blacklist database.

Actually, this also happens in my country because of certain reason. And we cannot avoid it and must still use Binance exchange by using such VPN or DNS.

Now it has blocked the access to localbitcoins, and people find a way accessing with VPN. Russia is the leading country for the P2P Exchange operation contributing around 20% of the trading.

Isn't this the first time Russia has banned LocalBitcoin? If I'm not mistaken, LocalBitcoin was also banned in Russia in 2016. However, from the past, when this happened, people could still access it using VPNs or Tor. This will continue. If so, what's the difference? Is this just a formality? Or will there be a continuation if caught accessing or using LocalBitcoin?

I'm a little bit curious about the exact reasons why the government banned again LocalBitcoin there, as it is the biggest P2P exchange that mostly used by Russians. However, I am also sure that the government will never make mistakes for the reasons. We do not know the issues and also problems happen exactly there that probably influence the financial system, security, and also the services.

[iRaMMuS34]

Damn, I really hope someday this anti-human laws in Russia BS will be over. Until then I see nothing good, esp conecrning crypto perspectives in this region

[death69]

I think taxing is the problem why Russia decides to block localbitcoins. Maybe there are regulations and tax on bitcoin third-party exchange so that they can easier to collect tax from the trader who participate in bưying and selling bitcoin. Tax is obligation to the citizens. By using tax, the government can upgrade facilities and infrastructure for better life condition

I know that most of the people want to avoid paying tax with cryptos. But as long as you want bitcoin to be adopted, you have to accept what the government is dealing with it. Restriction will make bitcoin more popular. There will be news about it in Russia

[Artemis3]

Well if i was in Russia i would be looking to have tor working using obfs4. A vpn may work but can ultimately be blocked.

Why would a gov want to block exchanges? maybe to impose silly restrictions like you can only buy 8000 USD equivalent of bitcoin per month. The foolish politicians think they can force their outdated thinking to something that is simply beyond their control.

Sad news for Russians, but be smarter than your gov, i know you can do it.

We, the people of the world, are oppressed by the State, some a bit more than others, but oppressed none the less. Bitcoin is freedom, and they hate that, politicians want to dictate what you eat, what you watch, and what you do. Its in their nature, therefore you have to be ready to counter it.

Bitcoin is the end for the State meddling with the money itself (everyone's wealth). They cannot enforce this, there will be resistance. The Russians are no fools to technology, unlike their politicians. Perhaps the Ruble is on free fall, which would explain this absurd attitude, and this is the signal to get rid of it asap.

Also it is a good opportunity to petition certain sites to be friendlier to freedom enabling technologies like tor, do not treat tor users like abusers, many people use it precisely to reclaim their freedom. You can stop abuse without disabling tor access entirely.

[zasad@]

I love reading about Russia, especially that it is a communist country

Roskomnadzor has blocked bitcointalk.org for a long time, but as you can see, the Russian local board is the largest on this forum.
Bestchange has been working through the mirror for a long time.
Localbitcoins resembles a centralized exchange with "know your customer" procedures. There is now a lot of fraud with other people's accounts, it is safer to change through Bestchange.

You also remember how Roskomnadzor blocked Telegram. The whole country laughed at this circus. They blocked the servers that hosted the services of Russian companies for transmitting reports to the tax authorities, and paralyzed their work, but telegram continued to work.

Why this happens - because every judge who does not understand blockchain technologies can decide to block a site. And in Russia, bitcoin is not banned and until the end of 2020 there is not a single current law on cryptocurrency.

[7788bitcoin]

Russia being one among the supportive country for cryptocurrency have stated bitcoin usage as payment is illegal while people are free to buy and sell which is the reason for the increased trading on Russia through localbitcoins than other countries.

I cannot understand what they are trying to accomplish, they are free to trade but then they blocked one of the biggest P2P exchanges that is active in Russia, some things are not adding up but whatever be the situation blocking a site will not mean anything as people are smart enough to overcome those restrictions with ease.

[semobo]

I think the reason why they blocked localbitcoins in their country based on the article I read from cointelegraph is 99% of funds coming from Russian has illegal source as income so government is trying to find those kind of people to make advantage of anonymous usages of bitcoins. Eventually people still uses LBC by using VPN or TOR network so it is not going to take much affect on trading volume unless Russia asks LBC to ban people from their country.

[tranthidung]

Russia has big trade volume on P2P marketplaces but they are not the biggest nation and the Eastern Europe is not in top-2 biggest regions. Charts above show that.

Actually, if we refer strictly to LocalBitcoins they are, they have the biggest volume of 678 BTC while Venezuela has only 502 BTC ,and the percentage the OP mentioned is pretty close, 678 out of 3667 is 18.4%.

Thanks for the additional details and your figures nearly fit OP's. Russia is more dominant on LocalBitcoins rather than on Paxful and the combined trade volume of the two. I don't know the total P2P marketplace trading volume.

Do you know any source for it? I would like to know it if you can share. It is better to get bigger picture and have another data source to compare with usefultulips.org

The figures I presented previously are for LocalBitcoins and Paxful only. They are biggest but not totally represent the whole P2P marketplace.

If anybody thinks that dealing on LocalBitcoins makes you untraceable you need a reality wake-up call.

Not all P2P marketplaces are decentralized or don't require KYC. With KYC documents, if governments force companies to share with them, your transactions are truly tracebale, even with bank transfer. Trade bitcoin or other crypto, the final of capital flow is fiat -- at least at current period when the adoption of bitcoin, crypto is not popular enough.

Even on decentralized exchanges, if you don't make your transactions and use addresses appropriately (address reuse), your transactions can be traced.

[zasad@]

Russia being one among the supportive country for cryptocurrency have stated bitcoin usage as payment is illegal while people are free to buy and sell which is the reason for the increased trading on Russia through localbitcoins than other countries.

I cannot understand what they are trying to accomplish, they are free to trade but then they blocked one of the biggest P2P exchanges that is active in Russia, some things are not adding up but whatever be the situation blocking a site will not mean anything as people are smart enough to overcome those restrictions with ease.

If you're interested, the answer is simple - for reporting. Officials do not care about the result of their actions and what will happen after, the main thing is to execute the plan and write a report describing the work done. If they don't, they will be fired or their bonuses will be forfeited. Everything works according to this principle in Russia.Look at the exchange limits
https://www.bestchange.ru/bitcoin-to-ruble-cash.html
 from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million in availability. Moscow has the largest shadow market for the sale of cryptocurrencies, and it will work regardless of the laws in the country.

[Karartma1]

If anybody thinks that dealing on LocalBitcoins makes you untraceable you need a reality wake-up call.

I want to stress what you said here because it's never enough warning users about the hidden dangers of feeling that false sense of security when trading p2p. One really need to be a brave, smart, nasty mfkr to strive and survive in this madness.

[Fundamentals Of]

Bitcoin is accepted in Russia but within a very limited number of use. Not included in the limited uses is being a currency or a form of payment.

The worse thing about the prohibition of Bitcoin being used as payment in Russia is that the order is quite wide that it also covers those crypto businesses which are somehow promoting Bitcoin as a currency. They are also included in the blacklist.

This is bad for Bitcoin as designed. Even if Bitcoin may grow in Russia it will never fulfill its purpose of being the people's money.

Even if russian people doesn't have a full control to their own bitcoin, it is not bad because bitcoin is not yet well recognized on their country and being able to use it on their country this early is a good thing. Bitcoin being people's money doesn't need to be goal on their country. If they don't want it to become the people's money then we should't force them and all we can do it to promote it on the other countries until all the country around Russia manage to make bitcoin a people's money then Russia are surely going to approve it.

If you are contented to just settle for less then it may not be that bad for you. But for me that is bad enough because it basically takes away the freedom of its people. Bitcoin is not a crime. It is just a technology so why not fight for its legalization?

What if other countries will also not accept Bitcoin to be used in payment for goods and services? Shall we just also say it's okay because the government doesn't want it and then leave? How about the millions of its citizen who prefer to use Bitcoin over fiat?

[lebregone]

I am a little bit surprised to their action, is there any information also why they ban localbitcoin in Russia? It will be good if we can see also the reason behind it.

Binance restriction has been resolved, so there is a big chance also that localbitcoins can be unblock also. I am not so sure if there are some problems between Russia and localbitcoins.

[bitpotter]

Incidents like this are common, maybe there are several factors that affect localbitcoins being banned from the Russian government. There may be conditions that localbitcoins do not approve or violate.

[gentlemand]

Russia have actually... done something? Quite amazing. They've been threatening since before human were capable of counting. It's a pisser for the locals but perhaps more agile options will take over. LBC has been slowly edging its way downhill for a long old time now.

[2double0]

I always heard about Russia to be the capital of crime, and now they are becoming capital of forcefulness. Forcefully imposing their laws to stop their 'netizens' from trading in btc by banning P2P exchanges while the government mines btc for their own welfare? This is not done!
Aren't they mining btc with their own mining farms while a law was passed earlier that their citizens could not mine btc?

[Willitivity]

One thing I have noticed about Russia's ban of crypto websites like Localbitcoins and Binance, it's the fact that Bitcoin are being advertised on this site in a way that encourages users to buy in one way or another. Not sure why though.  Regardless of the ban, users can utilize the services of VPNs if need be to access the site. Russia can't completely stop crypto trading.

[kawetsriyanto]

Can you tell me the reason why Russia blocks LocalBitcoin? This is a big P2P exchange, right? is it related to the law in that country? or, it is only a short issue about banning Localbitcoins?
Many people are commonly panic because of it. Moreover, today, some exchanges are also banned in some countries like what happen to Binance.
fortunately, yeah there is a VPN that can help us. Although sometimes, it is risky enough using it, moreover if it is not paid-type VPNs.