Crypto exchange Binance punishes Russians for the war in Ukraine

[Argoo]

In September, Binance announced a complete exit from Russia and the sale of its business in this country to the CommEX crypto exchange. The decision to leave the Russian Federation was made against the background of international pressure in connection with the full-scale aggression of the Russian army towards Ukraine.

But starting November 20, Russians will face a new unpleasant surprise. From now on, on Binance you can neither buy nor sell cryptocurrencies such as Cardano (ADA), Algorand (ALGO), Arbitrum (ARB), Arkham (ARKM), ARPA, BNB, BUSD, Polkadot (DOT), Ethereum (ETH) for rubles ), Litecoin (LTC), Polygon (MATIC), NEAR, Solana (SOL), Worldcoin (WLD) and XRP.

Binance representatives explained this decision “to protect users and support high-quality trading.”

Source: https://m.antikor.com.ua/ru/articles/666972-kriptobirha_binance_nanesla_udar_po_valjute_rf_za_rubli_teperj_neljzja_kupitj_top-kriptu

In Russia itself, they are going to turn off YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp for citizens. Little by little, Russians are being isolated from the outside world for aggression, and their government is being isolated in order to hide the truth from its citizens.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DHk3aEj6eBfg&ved=2ahUKEwi4_qKR59eCAxUFQ_EDHbHkBHAQtwJ6BAgaEAI&usg=AOvVaw2IvQXGVdt4 Te1BmYffzFpn

https://m.antikor.com.ua/ru/articles/659010-rf_nachala_zakupki_tehnologij_dlja_blokirovki_sajtov_i_programm_pod_pritselom_youtube_whatsapp_telegram_vpn

[Sithara007]

Well.. I am not sure how this is interpreted as "punishing" the citizens of Russia. Unless Binance is going to seize crypto-holdings of their Russian users, I will not translate this move as any sort of "punishment". First of all, the Russian government is not very positive about the role of crypto-currency (especially since the local currency got devalued by 2-3x during the last decade or so). And secondly, there are enough local crypto-exchanges in Russia itself and the users can just migrate to any of these platforms from Binance.

[davis196]

But starting November 20, Russians will face a new unpleasant surprise. From now on, on Binance you can neither buy nor sell cryptocurrencies such as Cardano (ADA), Algorand (ALGO), Arbitrum (ARB), Arkham (ARKM), ARPA, BNB, BUSD, Polkadot (DOT), Ethereum (ETH) for rubles ), Litecoin (LTC), Polygon (MATIC), NEAR, Solana (SOL), Worldcoin (WLD) and XRP.

Binance representatives explained this decision “to protect users and support high-quality trading.”

There's a contradiction here. So basically Binance left Russia, but Russian citizens can still open accounts and trade on the platform?
I thought that "leaving Russia" means banning the Russian citizens from using Binance completely.
Forbidding the Russians from buying and selling several altcoins doesn't seem like a real punishment to me.
I didn't understand the news about Youtube, Telegram and Whatsapp being banned in Russia. This seems like fake news to me.
Telegram is a Russian platform and even the pro-Putin supporters and organizations are actively using it.
Telegram being banned in Russia doesn't make any sense at all.

[super bako]

If this news is true, I imagine that Russia is very chaotic in terms of business and everything. Because nowadays everything is via the internet, gadgets will experience a slowdown in the economy and decline drastically. and the SEC seems to have a connection why it wants the BINANCE market to have its own interests realizing that Russia is part of the important role of CRYPTO. maybe this is an SEC breakthrough

[kentrolla]

We ar contradicting the facts here why would Binance punish citizens of Russia for something done by the regime and I am sure they cannot be so insensible and if businesses and service providers are gonna pull out due to the crimes, invasion and war the there is a country which has invaded 1/4 of world and there would have been no business or service providers in that country.

This is not gonna have any impact of Russian regime and also I have had some Russian counterparts as my client they have their own version of everything, be it social media be it applications or exchanges.

You can never test capitalists as Russia is a huge market for them and they are not gonna let it go just like that.

[Plaguedeath]

Most of centralized projects already ban Russian, so it's not surprising anymore if Binance did this. But this isn't a problem for Russians because they can still trade using DEX which will not block them regardless any laws or even Russian itself ban crypto usage.

Russian Ruble not suffered high inflation, their economy are still fine, it's surprising the invasion isn't end yet.

[martinex]

If this news is true, I imagine that Russia is very chaotic in terms of business and everything. Because nowadays everything is via the internet, gadgets will experience a slowdown in the economy and decline drastically. and the SEC seems to have a connection why it wants the BINANCE market to have its own interests realizing that Russia is part of the important role of CRYPTO. maybe this is an SEC breakthrough

It's true that something happened and it looks like the news will happen in 2022, not this year, but there's nothing wrong with discussing it again. and of course there has been clarification from the Binance CEO regarding this regarding the OP's post above. What I'm currently following is how the BNB price will look in the future after the incident that hit the CEO at Binance recently.

[kryptqnick]

Well, it's been almost 2 years of the full-scale war, and Binance really took its time to slowly pull out of Russia. They've introduced some sanctions early on and some support for Ukrainians early on as well, but it's still not a complete absence of doing business in Russia yet.
And I agree with Sithara007 that it's not exactly punishment. I think these are very reasonable measures, perhaps coming too late and not being harsh enough, really. I've seen that the US has actually launched investigation into Binance for it allegedly helping Russians bypass the US sanctions.

[Argoo]

We ar contradicting the facts here why would Binance punish citizens of Russia for something done by the regime and I am sure they cannot be so insensible and if businesses and service providers are gonna pull out due to the crimes, invasion and war the there is a country which has invaded 1/4 of world and there would have been no business or service providers in that country.

Every Russian has a share of the blame for the fact that civilians from Ukraine have been dying every day for almost two years. This is not done by the Putin regime. It is the husbands, sons and children of “innocent” Russians who kill, rob and rape in Ukraine. Moreover, throughout these two years, approximately 70 percent of the Russian population has constantly supported the war and the seizure of Ukrainian territory.

All Russians are guilty of electing the current government, which started this most brutal and bloody war in Europe since the Second World War. If the population had not supported the war and actively opposed it, it would not have started or would have ended very quickly. We have no right to interfere in the internal affairs of Russia and the people’s election of their government. Therefore, on the other hand, every citizen of Russia is responsible for the actions of his government.

In Ukraine, over 300 thousand Russians have already died, been wounded, captured or gone missing, and they are still climbing and climbing with weapons in their hands on Ukrainian soil. You can stop them either by military means, or try to do it in other ways, as the Binance crypto exchange does.

[Dunamisx]

Binance exchange has not been the only business organization that implement the sanction on Russia at the cause of the war with Ukraine, if they choose to use a centralized means to shut down other's people assets and businesses in cryptocurrency, what about the use of a non custodial wallets, every users of decentralized exchanges, are they also going to be affected also what about the use of all these, we should think about having alternative to every impeding consequences.

[super bako]

If this news is true, I imagine that Russia is very chaotic in terms of business and everything. Because nowadays everything is via the internet, gadgets will experience a slowdown in the economy and decline drastically. and the SEC seems to have a connection why it wants the BINANCE market to have its own interests realizing that Russia is part of the important role of CRYPTO. maybe this is an SEC breakthrough

It's true that something happened and it looks like the news will happen in 2022, not this year, but there's nothing wrong with discussing it again. and of course there has been clarification from the Binance CEO regarding this regarding the OP's post above. What I'm currently following is how the BNB price will look in the future after the incident that hit the CEO at Binance recently.

CZ doesn't seem to be concerned about the price of BNB in the future because it is outside his business. because of the ongoing problems of controversy between countries. Shizu really took the right steps to take a break. Maybe in the future we will see a new CZ project that will be developed and reorganize the shortcomings that have been overcome.

[Die_empty]

In September, Binance announced a complete exit from Russia and the sale of its business in this country to the CommEX crypto exchange. The decision to leave the Russian Federation was made against the background of international pressure in connection with the full-scale aggression of the Russian army towards Ukraine.

Binance's exit from the Russian market was not unexpected because several multinationals have earlier taken the same decision. Binance tried to maintain its customers in Russia but the pressure was too much due to Western sanctions against Russia. Although the content of the deal was not made public I guess the transfer of ownership to CommEX was smooth and customers didn't lose their money.

But starting November 20, Russians will face a new unpleasant surprise. From now on, on Binance you can neither buy nor sell cryptocurrencies such as Cardano (ADA), Algorand (ALGO), Arbitrum (ARB), Arkham (ARKM), ARPA, BNB, BUSD, Polkadot (DOT), Ethereum (ETH) for rubles ), Litecoin (LTC), Polygon (MATIC), NEAR, Solana (SOL), Worldcoin (WLD) and XRP.

This is part of the transfer of ownership process to CommEX. It was agreed that the process will take one year to complete so we should expect more changes. This might also be part of the deal the company signed with the US Department of Justice. There are also reports that the reason for this action is due to poor liquidity and trading volume of these coins in the Russian market. All we can do is assume because the main reasons for these steps are kept away from the public.

[Sunderland]

Not only for the people in Russia, last year the EU already ban Russians in Europe to use crypto and every exchange based on US and EU already blocked any account belong to the Russians people.

Kinda surpirising to read binance still offers their service for Russians even with a limited service, but I guess they are dare to do that because binance headquarter located outside the US and EU, not in Malta anymore.

[el kaka22]

Honestly, I am feeling like there is going to be some sort of situation where they are basically handling it in a way that they are going to be fine, not that it is going to be that easy but they are having a battle with USA right now via SEC which means that we are talking about a situation where USA could make them do whatever they want them to do, and Binance will have to follow. Think about it, they are punished 4.3 billion dollars right now by the SEC and CZ is gone, if USA is this strong about it, then I have to say that it is going to be quite a big deal for them, and they should do something that will benefit them on the long run.

I believe that we are going to end up being a lot better one way or another, it should be the case and should be their benefit. Hopefully they could get better, and I get that it may look like it is not that easy, but at the end of the day we are talking about something that is possible for the reason why they are doing this.

[tjtonmoy]

I think this move does not make any difference in Russia. The system and the politics and the politicians creates wars and conflicts and the citizen suffers the most. Imagine just chilling in the garage and trying to live a simple life and your country goes to war in which you have nothing to do or any connection but you are facing the consequences. Even if Russia is causing war, does that justify the suffering of innocent citizen?

War is fought by military power but in everywhere the innocent citizens are the one who suffers from it. I have sympathy for both Ukraine and Russian citizens. But not for the dirty politics and the politicians. Maybe what Binance is doing is for there on promotions and publicity. They are trying to come in the spotlight because they have faced some difficult times previously this year. Who knows, Russia may declare Bitcoin as a legal currency and they will be able to use it without converting it into Fiat money using exchanges. I always try to look at the positive side. So this is a possibility that could happen.

[so98nn]

Well, it is nothing new because most of the businesses exited right after Russia and Ukraine war broke out. Somehow I think this is the connection between recent accusations of some exchanges funding the war with their Bitcoin addresses and supporting the rival countries. There are also accusations that Ukraine had gotten a lot of money via Bitcoin transfers to buy weapons. Now no one really knows what is truth but we know very well Bitcoin's nature of anonymity can give that much power to it and more power to criminals.

I don't know but Russia (mostly Putin) was against Bitcoin since the first. Then news broke out that Putin is again trying to implement digital fiat in their system but with a lot of complications in the project. Now, here comes the biggest exchanger Binance, it was supposed to come out of Russia because they didn't want to get stains of criminal activities.

I think this move does not make any difference in Russia. The system and the politics and the politicians creates wars and conflicts and the citizen suffers the most.

It doesn't affect Russia but the real question is whether it's about Russia OR it's about Binance itself which is trying to save itself from those bad boys and not get caught in the middle of wrong turns.

[Sunderland]

- snip -

Maybe what Binance is doing is for there on promotions and publicity. They are trying to come in the spotlight because they have faced some difficult times previously this year. Who knows, Russia may declare Bitcoin as a legal currency and they will be able to use it without converting it into Fiat money using exchanges. I always try to look at the positive side. So this is a possibility that could happen.

Binance has sold their business operations in Russia to the newly created company CommEX and since last week Binance do not receive deposit with rubel anymore.

They are definetely not trying to promote their service in Russia, they are trying to escape from any possible lawsuit by the US justice department regarding violating the sanctions against Russia.

[dothebeats]

I'm pretty sure there are still different avenues to which Russians can buy and sell crypto. It's not as if Binance is the only exchange that caters to the country, as there are other local providers that can facilitate these trades anyway. I don't see it as a punishment for the Russians, I see it as lesser competitions to the local exchanges that are still operating in the Russian soil.

The move to exit Russia may perhaps be just another move by Binance to save themselves from further persecution, as their ex-CEO has pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering in the platform. They just want to distance themselves to another possible issue.

[CryptSafe]

Banning or no banning, we all know that crypto is all about decentralization and anonymity. Even if Binance gets Russia banned from their platform, it does not affect them because there are other platforms that are ready, willing, and open to welcoming Russia to their platform. This is all about their profit and traffic, so they want to make many gigs for themselves, and mind you, Binance already has gigs and a name for their brand, which is well done without Russians patronizing their platform.

Aside from that, the decentralized platforms are very open and free, and that represents the real purpose of crypto and blockchain, which is for anonymity. I believe Russians would improvise to do their crypto deals without any issues to face, rather than bothering themselves with a Binance ban on them.  So therefore, i think the ban on Russians from Binance platform holds no water.

[Zanab247]

Most of centralized projects already ban Russian, so it's not surprising anymore if Binance did this. But this isn't a problem for Russians because they can still trade using DEX which will not block them regardless any laws or even Russian itself ban crypto usage.

Russian Ruble not suffered high inflation, their economy are still fine, it's surprising the invasion isn't end yet.

That's why any government try to ban crypto or decentralized currency in their various countries always regret for their decision because, there is no way you can stop people not to use decentralized currency, and there are many ways people will be investing in crypto without the concept of the government. Despite what Russian did by banned binance from their country but there is no improvement in their country because their economy was attacked during the war that happened between them and Ukraine that made many countries not to support what they did to Ukraine.

If Russian president continue with this banned of the decentralized currency in the country, it will make their citizens not to support him in his political career because he is not giving the citizens what will help them to grow higher in their various businesses.