Binance restricts P2P transactions in USD and EUR for Russian citizens 〽️

Binance has restricted Russian citizens from buying and selling USD and EUR through its P2P service, in compliance with the EU's tenth package of sanctions against Russia, a Binance representative told RBC Crypto. The ban also applies to any individuals residing in Russia, regardless of their citizenship. In turn, citizens of EU countries are barred from transacting in rubles.

"To continue using Binance P2P, users can choose other available fiat currencies," said the Binance representative. However, the restrictions only apply to EUR and USD. Russian users can still buy any cryptocurrencies with rubles, including USDT and other stablecoins available on the exchange. In fact, this restriction has hardly affected anyone in Russia, as most transactions on the Binance P2P platform have always been conducted in rubles.

Moreover, other major crypto exchanges, including KuCoin, Huobi, Bybit, and OKX, have not imposed any restrictions on the currency transactions of Russian citizens. They also offer P2P trading services and are available to Russian citizens without restrictions.

Interestingly, the tenth package of sanctions does not actually provide for any restrictions prohibiting Russian citizens from purchasing something in euros. Binance's decision was more likely due to pressure from Rosfinmonitoring.

Just today, the Director of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, Yuri Chikhanchin, met with Putin and informed the President about the current activities of the agency.
Chikhanchin noted: "Unfortunately, I have to say that the volume of cryptocurrency use is increasing. We still have a certain amount of unregulated activity for today. In particular, we have more than 25,000 participants in these operations under our monitoring. We have identified about ten financial organizations that are assisting them. The turnover of cryptocurrency today is somewhere around 630,000 bitcoins ($13.7 billion). We have conducted about 120 of our investigations and more than 60 criminal cases,"

Apparently, Rosfinmonitoring has found that most of the 25,000 users identified in Russia exchange cryptocurrencies on P2P platforms and asked the exchange to ban this type of activity for registered customers in Russia. Binance usually responds quickly to government requests!

Of course, the Chikhanchin department still has a lot of work ahead to identify about two million more cryptocurrency users in Russia, but the work is ongoing and the number of identified holders of cryptocurrencies will continue to grow. It is very interesting what 60 criminal cases Yuri Chikhanchin is referring to, as possession and use of cryptocurrencies is not a criminal offense in Russia.

The most interesting thing is that after the introduction of the digital ruble (#cbdc), the number of cryptocurrency users may increase to half of the population, not because they are all bad and engage in illegal activities, but simply because people do not like it when someone else controls their money, especially when that someone can take it away from them.

Either this is a coincidence, or the closing of fiat gateways for the dollar and euro around the world negatively affects the cryptocurrency market

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