MEXC and Bitget end their services in Russia and Belarus.

[JeromeTash]

MEXC and Bitget end their services in Russia and Belarus to comply with regulatory requirements

They had too. Almost all top exchanges will follow suit or face sanctions like HTX and Group. But from what I observed, Russia seems to have a lot of exchanges servicing their residents that I have seen in exchange monitors, so I am not sure if they will really get affected.

[Oshosondy]

I was thinking this is going to happen. Russians are allowed to opens account on several exchanges and P2P is available for Russians on the exchanges. Since when I posted a topic about how Russia banned P2P transactions, I know this will be coming. But this are exchanges, nothing can be able to stop P2P.

I think its not Russia that is responsible for their withdrawal of services, its the international sanctions against Russia that made them stop, if i understand this right they don't want to continue offering services in Russia as their business would be at risk, especially from the governments of the US and UK.

Be it either way or both ways, you should know that I am following what people are posting on this thread. Did you not noticed the merit that I have sent to a reputable member for posting something similar to what you posted. I know that it could be because of Western Sanctions from what some people have posted.

[batang_bitcoin]

AFAIK, there's going to be this new law from Russia that directs its people to use only those exchanges that are permitted by them in the P2P. And if these two exchanges didn't make it, then expect that the other ones will also have a hard time complying with the requirements they ask. This shows an opportunity to exchanges that will be based in Russia that will cover the services that these exchanges fleeing their market.

[Renampun]

With crypto regulations being so strict in Russia, there is no other way to continue maintaining their operations there.. So ending their services in those two countries is a rational choice for them because maintaining operations under such restrictive conditions could expose them to legal risks.. They can still operate in many other countries, so rather than putting their business at risk, it makes more sense for them to withdraw from those countries and focus on jurisdictions where the regulations are more favorable to their services.. so it's not completely the end for them.

[joniboini]

AFAIK, there's going to be this new law from Russia that directs its people to use only those exchanges that are permitted by them in the P2P.

From an outsider perspective this seems quite common to how some government handle blacklist regulations. In my country at least some exchanges don't have a license to operate and the government bans them by doing things like IP blacklist, app delisting, and so on. I haven't heard a popular one explicitly stop servicing users from my region though. The biggest reason for that is probably because they don't actually have an office here. Not sure how these overseas exchanges operates in various countries, I guess they don't want to deal with government agents tracking them down or their operators are locared in some of these countries.

[Dogedegen]

I don't know but we will know soon with time. I feel like Russia and Belarus don't have enough both soft and hard powers to force cryptocurrency centralized exchanges changing their ToS to comply with regulatory in these nations. They're not the USA and they are not able to do massive sanctions like the USA or European nations in EU.

It's not too clear why MEXC and Bitget too quickly with changing ToS and complying with new regulatory requirements in Russia and Belarus.

They immediately comply, because they might face much heavier penalties and many more issues if they ignore the sanction.

Also I think complying might cost a lot from them, that's why maybe they just choose to end up their operation in said countries.

MEXC and Bitget just comply, because they probably know that they are the one will suffer and receive much big fines either in EU or US.

I think what they just did is for survival, they avoid those countries imposing strict restriction with unregulated platforms in their jurisdiction.

Yeah every legitimate business is going to comply as soon as someone really goes after them. So when someone is not complying they are two main reasons that could be. One is that they are not interesting or significant enough for a regulator to go directly after them, so they are playing with time and trying to earn money during this phase of not being directly pursued. The other one is that the business is suspicious and does not want to comply. In some cases this could be fine, but when it comes to platforms that deal with money we can't risk it being scammers. I always wondered about the global sanctions and about how these lists are handled. Like why is Kazakhstan on a list of sanctioned counties?

MEXC and Bitget end their services in Russia and Belarus to comply with regulatory requirements

They had too. Almost all top exchanges will follow suit or face sanctions like HTX and Group. But from what I observed, Russia seems to have a lot of exchanges servicing their residents that I have seen in exchange monitors, so I am not sure if they will really get affected.

There are many ways to avoid these sanctions at least for crypto to crypto trades, so users under sanctioned countries need to improve their knowledge and use better tools. The only difficult thing is access to fiat, but not that many people need regular off boarding for fiat compared to crypto to crypto trades I think.

[Darker45]

They're left with no choice. It's either they continue serving the Russians and lose the western market, which is apparently much juicier, or ditch the Russians and keep their nice spots under the sun. For revenue-driven entities, it's a no-brainer.

Overall, I think this is pure hegemony. Blanket approaches seem to me a sign of either laziness and incompetence or sheer bullying. It's obvious this is the game of geo-politics extending to what's otherwise just normal services for ordinary people all over the world.

[Multani Boy]

This case is most probably the same specially considering the timing of it. Recently the Russians started placing crazy limitations on their crypto traders targeting self-custody and P2P trades. Something that would obviously push Russians to use foreign exchanges... foreign exchanges that suddenly decided to ban them to comply with Western sanctions on Russia; sanctions that were imposed 4-5 years ago and they are just remembering to ban them now!!!

This does not mean that these new limits were put in place as a result of either of these changes, as neither announcement makes any mention of which specific rule or regulator is the reason for the new limits.
There have been recent rules deadlines and changes to sanctions, so I would not automatically assume this is about older sanctions that are only now being applied for the first time.
The EU’s 20th sanctions package includes new limits on deals with Russian and Belarusian crypto-service providers from May 24, 2026.
The transition period for meeting the rules of the EU’s crypto law, MiCA, ended on July 1.

[shinratensei_]

They're left with no choice. It's either they continue serving the Russians and lose the western market, which is apparently much juicier, or ditch the Russians and keep their nice spots under the sun. For revenue-driven entities, it's a no-brainer.

Overall, I think this is pure hegemony. Blanket approaches seem to me a sign of either laziness and incompetence or sheer bullying. It's obvious this is the game of geo-politics extending to what's otherwise just normal services for ordinary people all over the world.

Both MEXC and Bitget don't have registered US entity and they prohibit US users from registering, both can't secure MiCA license to operate in EU as well which means they probably have low amount of EU customers, even if there is any. My guess is that, they actually aren't afraid of losing western market, but they're afraid losing access to prominent stablecoins like USDT and USDC which could cripple their entire business.

[yhiaali3]

I expect that many exchanges will follow MEXC and Bitget in ending their services in Russia soon because these services will cause them trouble and expose them to penalties for violating the sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and the European Union.

The main victims of all this are Russian users who have no connection to politics whatsoever; many of them do not support Putin or the Russian government, but nevertheless bear the consequences of these policies.

[Chibit01]

Although in this case they claim to have given time to the users to withdraw, there has been other case where the CEX just stole the users' funds (eg. Bittrex), just like that...

Bitrex is a fraud. After blocking users from the so-said sanctioned regions, they were later fined by the US government, where I believe part of the seized funds were used to pay for the fine of about $29m. Before they filed for bankruptcy, there was news of them creating a window of withdrawal for affected victims with a condition which makes the majority of affected people unable to process their withdrawal (fraudulent acts).

AFAIK, there's going to be this new law from Russia that directs its people to use only those exchanges that are permitted by them in the P2P.

It's no longer going to be but the law have already been made, with effect to be from july 2027

Russia has confirmed that direct peer-to-peer cryptocurrency transactions between individuals will be prohibited from July 1, 2027, requiring residents to conduct trades through authorized intermediaries.

https://crypto.news/russia-to-ban-peer-to-peer-crypto-trades-what-does-it-mean-for-traders/

They need to comply or face bigger consequences, to safe their businesses they did the right thing,

You mean to say they are bowing to their masters, whatever they condemn stands. If they want to keep their license, they need to follow the legal rules without objections.

I expect that many exchanges will follow MEXC and Bitget in ending their services in Russia soon because these services will cause them trouble and expose them to penalties for violating the sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and the European Union.

It all started with news of most of the exchanges warning users not to send or receive deposits from exchanges which they believe to have been used to trade or help prevent sanctions. Now we have this.

[pooya87]

This does not mean that these new limits were put in place as a result of either of these changes, as neither announcement makes any mention of which specific rule or regulator is the reason for the new limits.

Just because they don't mention it in their announcements, it doesn't mean it's not the reason. As I said the pressure these regimes put on these companies is not always made public. It happens behind the scene and I am just speculating here because of the timing and based on West's behavior:

You see the US regime is trying to resume the war in West Asia so they need to freeze their war in East Europe hence the pausing of certain military aid to their proxies including the StarLink connections, talks of negotiations with Russia, etc. But they don't want to end that war and want to continue weakening Russia; therefore when they lower the "armed" aggression pressure, they increase the pressure elsewhere. One of it is economical. This is why over the past couple of months they've been destroying Russian gas/diesel infrastructure (so that in case there is a ceasefire or even lower level of conflict between NATO and Russia, the Russians still struggle with fuel).
This type of pressure (banning average Russian who was using such exchanges) is part of that plan and it has to happen at this particular time. In Autumn.

[lovesmayfamilis]

I expect that many exchanges will follow MEXC and Bitget in ending their services in Russia soon because these services will cause them trouble and expose them to penalties for violating the sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and the European Union.

The main victims of all this are Russian users who have no connection to politics whatsoever; many of them do not support Putin or the Russian government, but nevertheless bear the consequences of these policies.

That's right, another exchange has stopped serving Russians. Now the news is talking about HTX. It appears that everyone accepts one compromise that is convenient for exchanges, and now, instead of investing and meeting new requirements, exchanges prefer to close access to Russia while maintaining their global operations without risk. https://1prime.ru/20261023/kriptobirzha-874583446.html

[Multani Boy]

Just because they don't mention it in their announcements, it doesn't mean it's not the reason. As I said the pressure these regimes put on these companies is not always made public. It happens behind the scene and I am just speculating here because of the timing and based on West's behavior:

You see the US regime is trying to resume the war in West Asia so they need to freeze their war in East Europe hence the pausing of certain military aid to their proxies including the StarLink connections, talks of negotiations with Russia, etc. But they don't want to end that war and want to continue weakening Russia; therefore when they lower the "armed" aggression pressure, they increase the pressure elsewhere. One of it is economical. This is why over the past couple of months they've been destroying Russian gas/diesel infrastructure (so that in case there is a ceasefire or even lower level of conflict between NATO and Russia, the Russians still struggle with fuel).
This type of pressure (banning average Russian who was using such exchanges) is part of that plan and it has to happen at this particular time. In Autumn.

It would also be interesting to see if the MEXC and Bitget policy changes were in response to political pressure. EU recently passed its 20th sanctions package against Russia which bans all EU persons and groups from dealing with Russian crypto asset service providers, and in July the EU sanctioned HTX and others for supposedly helping Russia bypass sanctions.

While this is not proof that MEXC and Bitget put changes in place due to political pressure or that the changes were timed to match the wider political situation, I do not think it is enough proof to rule that possibility out either based only on the fact that they did not directly mention it in their policy change announcements. Especially considering that exchanges have reason to make changes that help them avoid the risk of future secondary sanctions or other rule issues even before they are directly targeted by sanctions enforcement actions.

Sources: https://finance.ec.europa.eu/news/eu-adopts-20th-package-sanctions-against-russia-2026-04-23_en https://www.theblock.co/news/regulation/2026-07-25-eu-adds-htx-to-russia-sanctions-list-barring-transactions-starting-aug-23

[Ziskinberg]

That's right, another exchange has stopped serving Russians. Now the news is talking about HTX. It appears that everyone accepts one compromise that is convenient for exchanges, and now, instead of investing and meeting new requirements, exchanges prefer to close access to Russia while maintaining their global operations without risk. https://1prime.ru/20261023/kriptobirzha-874583446.html

They probably find it impossible to comply with the new requirements so the best option is just to close their operations, and besides they still have other operations in different countries, so they see that continuing to operate in Russia might put their other operations at risk, I think it's just the best decision for them, and those Western countries won by pressuring them.

[yhiaali3]

I expect that many exchanges will follow MEXC and Bitget in ending their services in Russia soon because these services will cause them trouble and expose them to penalties for violating the sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and the European Union.

The main victims of all this are Russian users who have no connection to politics whatsoever; many of them do not support Putin or the Russian government, but nevertheless bear the consequences of these policies.

That's right, another exchange has stopped serving Russians. Now the news is talking about HTX. It appears that everyone accepts one compromise that is convenient for exchanges, and now, instead of investing and meeting new requirements, exchanges prefer to close access to Russia while maintaining their global operations without risk. https://1prime.ru/20261023/kriptobirzha-874583446.html

That's right, exchanges or companies that provide financial services always prefer to stay away from conflict zones or countries under international sanctions. We have suffered from this here in my country, Syria, for many years.

Because of the policy of hostility towards the United States and allegiance to Russia and Iran that the previous Syrian government followed, sanctions were imposed on us for many years, and all crypto exchanges and financial companies such as Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and others have blocked Syria.

Now, with the end of the civil war and the arrival of a government aligned with the United States and the West, the sanctions have been lifted, and these companies have begun to return gradually.

[batang_bitcoin]

AFAIK, there's going to be this new law from Russia that directs its people to use only those exchanges that are permitted by them in the P2P.

It's no longer going to be but the law have already been made, with effect to be from july 2027

Russia has confirmed that direct peer-to-peer cryptocurrency transactions between individuals will be prohibited from July 1, 2027, requiring residents to conduct trades through authorized intermediaries.

https://crypto.news/russia-to-ban-peer-to-peer-crypto-trades-what-does-it-mean-for-traders/

Thanks, so it's already been made into law and the implementation goes by next year. So, this action is probably making way for it and these exchanges can't partake in it.

AFAIK, there's going to be this new law from Russia that directs its people to use only those exchanges that are permitted by them in the P2P.

From an outsider perspective this seems quite common to how some government handle blacklist regulations. In my country at least some exchanges don't have a license to operate and the government bans them by doing things like IP blacklist, app delisting, and so on. I haven't heard a popular one explicitly stop servicing users from my region though. The biggest reason for that is probably because they don't actually have an office here. Not sure how these overseas exchanges operates in various countries, I guess they don't want to deal with government agents tracking them down or their operators are locared in some of these countries.

I think most of the governments that does this only wants them to register and have a licensed required by law. And that's why even if a genuine exchange operates in a country where they are unregistered, unlicensed, they're said to be illegal and that's true about they might give up certain information as well to comply for that.

[Oshosondy]

They probably find it impossible to comply with the new requirements so the best option is just to close their operations, and besides they still have other operations in different countries, so they see that continuing to operate in Russia might put their other operations at risk, I think it's just the best decision for them, and those Western countries won by pressuring them.

They are still controlling the world somehow, so Bitget and MEXC have to accept what they say. They will not want to lose EU license and they will not want to get into trouble.

I think decentralized exchanges would have been better, but what these exchanges are offering, decentralized exchanges are not offering some of it and the convenience.

I think exchanges that no country will have influence on will be better, it can be made but people prefer centralized exchanges. People are the problem of themselves.

[Taskford]

This does not mean that these new limits were put in place as a result of either of these changes, as neither announcement makes any mention of which specific rule or regulator is the reason for the new limits.

Just because they don't mention it in their announcements, it doesn't mean it's not the reason. As I said the pressure these regimes put on these companies is not always made public. It happens behind the scene and I am just speculating here because of the timing and based on West's behavior:

You see the US regime is trying to resume the war in West Asia so they need to freeze their war in East Europe hence the pausing of certain military aid to their proxies including the StarLink connections, talks of negotiations with Russia, etc. But they don't want to end that war and want to continue weakening Russia; therefore when they lower the "armed" aggression pressure, they increase the pressure elsewhere. One of it is economical. This is why over the past couple of months they've been destroying Russian gas/diesel infrastructure (so that in case there is a ceasefire or even lower level of conflict between NATO and Russia, the Russians still struggle with fuel).
This type of pressure (banning average Russian who was using such exchanges) is part of that plan and it has to happen at this particular time. In Autumn.

Well usually West do those things to use as leverage. Also If there's heavy pressure happened, major adjustment will probably occur. Then as effect their are certain disruptions will happen which gives huge effect.

Also the timing of events you have said, actually fits on the situation happening. Then I think this is their reaction with those conflicts.

Most craziest part there, normal people will endure the effect of their decisions made.

[Sandra_hakeem]

Well, if exchanges are so afraid of the West, then let them lose this huge part of the audience.

I don't know what the actual case was here but I can tell you that sometimes it is not that they are afraid of the West for no reason. It is more like they are directly targeted and Western regimes start putting pressure on these companies to join their destabilization/cold war against other nations.

For example some years ago the US regime put pressure on Github to limit Iranian accounts!!! Github of all places.

These things are meant to continue putting pressure on the average citizen of countries that do not bow down to the Epstein Axis so that those citizens get more unsatisfied and start an unrest back home so that the Epstein Axis can use it to extort the government of that country and maybe even force them to bow down to the Evil Axis!

A shortened explanation to this would be that West has always had an egregious desire to control, both what is at  reach and that which is far apart. You got a little aggro to have used too many of the "Epstein Axis" word to describe them. But if not them, then who else answers for that?  

How did they successfully tie this to the AML rules for these countries but not the others? It's high time we knew that these western regulators don't have a mind of their own. This is also a form of sanction, especially since they're targeting cross-border financial channels.