Largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance bans Russians from buying dollars and euros through P2P
YEREVAN, March 10. /ARKA/. Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by transaction volume, has banned Russians, as well as individuals residing in Russia, from buying and selling dollars and euros through its P2P service, the Russian edition of Forbes magazine reported quoting a representative of the exchange. The decision was taken in accordance with the tenth package of EU restrictive measures against Russia.
In addition, the exchange banned EU citizens from buying and selling rubles via P2P. "Users can choose other available fiat currencies to continue using Binance P2P," an exchange representative pointed out.
When attempting to conduct a transaction, the site prompts users to select a "local currency for P2P trading" in accordance with Binance's rules "for the country specified during verification."
P2P (peer-to-peer) services allow users to make transactions between themselves without the intermediary of the exchange, on conditions determined by them. Russians began to actively use P2P-services Binance and other crypto exchanges in 2022 as a tool to transfer money abroad after the usual SWIFT-transfers have become difficult. These services can be used to transfer money from one cryptocurrency wallet to another or to buy cryptocurrency.
Purchase of cryptocurrencies for rubles and their subsequent sale for euros and dollars are mainly used by those involved in arbitrage trading, as well as those who use transactions on p2p-platforms as an analogue of SWIFT-transfers, says Alexei Zyuzin, the founder of the consulting company Crypto Holding
"It's just these people who will apparently suffer. All other users will not be significantly inconvenienced by this," he believes.
In April 2022, Binance placed limitations on trading activities of users from the country’s users in the wake of the prevailing European sanctions. Trading and deposit related restrictions were placed on Russian accounts that had crypto assets worth over 10,000 Euros. Only the withdrawal function was given to this set of users. -0-
