Why are Rubles trading at a 10% discount on Binance?

[nibor]

https://www.binance.com/en/trade/USDT_RUB?layout=pro

USDT/RUB is at 98.82 when the FX Spot is about 108.

Why?

Anyone got any ideas? What does it mean?

As is a nice arbitrage if you have a RUB bank account and can FX RUB->USD and transfer the USD back onto Binance.

Or are Binance restricting RUB withdrawals?

So can only mean there is a lot of crypto holders who want RUB in a bank account. Which seems odd to me... would expect there to be the opposite at the moment...

[nibor]

Thinking about it more I would expect the opposite.
I.e. there would be an imbalance of people wanting to sell Rubles to buy USDT/BTC/Eth etc... as a currency hedge/escape route.

But this discount is implying the opposite...

Arh - so does it imply that exporters are using Binance to convert USD->RUB as I am assuming this just became hard. So happy to pay 10% to do this?
So effectively Binance is being used (in a very small way - RUB volumes are tiny millions a day not billions) to avoid sanctions?

[jackg]

Can you withdraw roubles from binance?

If they've been banned from swift, is there a system binance can allow withdrawals from through since?

[NeuroticFish]

As is a nice arbitrage if you have a RUB bank account and can FX RUB->USD and transfer the USD back onto Binance.

Or are Binance restricting RUB withdrawals?

1. There's a good chance that at the moment you get those rubles in your hand they'll worth even less than your "investment".
2. I guess that you can withdraw rubles only if you have account at one of the few banks not affected by the SWIFT blocking.

I find this an overly risky "business opportunity".

[davis196]

Thinking about it more I would expect the opposite.
I.e. there would be an imbalance of people wanting to sell Rubles to buy USDT/BTC/Eth etc... as a currency hedge/escape route.

But this discount is implying the opposite...

Arh - so does it imply that exporters are using Binance to convert USD->RUB as I am assuming this just became hard. So happy to pay 10% to do this?
So effectively Binance is being used (in a very small way - RUB volumes are tiny millions a day not billions) to avoid sanctions?

More people selling rubles actually means that the price of the Russian ruble will go down.
I don't know what are you trying to say with "this discount is implying the opposite"?Do you really mean that the rubles will get more expensive,only because more people want to sell their rubles?This is quite the opposite of the law of supply and demand.
I don' think that Binance can be effectively used for avoiding the western sanctions.Binance is a custodial exchange,which supports KYC.I'm sure that Binance will comply with the financial restrictions,which are imposed by the big western governments.
The western financial sanctions are pointed towards the Russian elite,not the ordinary Russians,who are trading on Binance or the foreigners,who are trading with Russian rubles.

[el kaka22]

The only reasonable explanation was given; people do not want it here more than they do not want it anywhere else. I mean simply put, would you like to own Ruble right now?

I personally wouldn't want to, and since there are sanctions to exchange them to another currency right now, that means it is going to be hard for people to do it outside of crypto. You could invest your Ruble right now into crypto, buy something like USDT and wait for the war to be over. I guarantee you that you will have more money by the end because Ruble will keep going down more and more. Meaning that the difference you pay here would become a lot less important. That is at least what people are believing right now.