Russian clients may no longer use Binance’s P2P service to purchase and sell U.S. dollars and Euros. The Exchange said the move was motivated by the E.U.’s ninth round of sanctions on Russia. The firm has disabled P2P transactions for Russian citizens and residents.
According to reports, the exchange has made it illegal for E.U. nationals to trade rubles with one another through peer-to-peer platforms. Users may pick other accessible fiat currencies to continue utilizing Binance P2P, according to the Exchange’s spokesperson.
According to the Binance guidelines “for the country provided after verification,” the site suggests a “local currency for P2P trading” when a user attempts to complete a transaction.
Binance advocates for local currencies
P2P (peer-to-peer) service users can do business directly with one another, without any third-party involvement, and on mutually agreeable conditions.
When regular SWIFT transfers grew more difficult in 2022, Russians turned to Binance P2P services and other crypto exchanges as an alternative method of sending money overseas.
With these services, you may exchange fiat cash for bitcoin, send funds between wallets, or make purchases (for example, USDT stablecoin tied to the dollar’s value for rubles).
Alexey Zyuzin, founder of the consulting firm Crypto Holding, says that those who engage in arbitrage trading and those who use transactions on P2P platforms as an analog of SWIFT transfers are the most common users of operations involving the purchase of cryptocurrencies with rubles and their subsequent sale for euros and dollars.
What changed? Binance reverting leniency on Russia sanctions
From April forward, the total value of all assets held in Russian citizens’ crypto wallets on Binance must not exceed the equivalent of €10,000, a change from the previous policy, which restricted just the marginal value of assets in connection with sanctions.
Nevertheless, the limits were not applied immediately after being exceeded, and they may be removed by withdrawing an amount of more than €10,000 from the wallet.
Experts revealed that the exchange was lenient with Russians regarding sanctions restrictions applied last year. In particular, contrary to the eighth E.U. sanctions package’s mandate, Binance has not cut off access to its platform for Russian traders.
When crypto.news asked for a response from Binance execs and their PR Manager on whether recent regulatory scrutiny led to this decision, any further restrictions to be expected, and whether the firm was taking a political stance on the Russia-Ukraine saga, no response was given at the time of publication.
