World’s Biggest Cryptocurrency Exchange Leaves Russia

Binance has officially announced the sale of its entire Russian business.

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced its full exit from Russia by selling its firm to a newly launched crypto exchange business known as CommEX.

The user transition process will take up to a year.

“As we look toward the future, we recognize that operating in Russia is not compatible with Binance's compliance strategy,” the company said in a statement.

In the summer, two top managers who oversaw work in Russia left Binance. Gleb Kostarev was vice president for Eastern Europe and the CIS, Vladimir Smerkis was director for Russia, The Moscow Times recalls.

On August 26, Binance banned Russians from p2p transactions with any foreign currencies. The restrictions were introduced after the WSJ published that Binance continues to help Russians transfer money abroad, despite its commitment to comply with Western sanctions. For example, the exchange continued to support the cards of Sberbank and Tinkoff included in the SND list, renaming them “green local card” and “yellow local card”.

In May, it became known that the US Department of Justice was conducting an investigation against Binance. American authorities suspected that Russian citizens were using it to circumvent sanctions.