2023-04-25 10:39:40
Users in Russia have reported that they can once again use their locally issued Mastercard and Visa cards on the crypto exchange more than a year after the sanctions were imposed.
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, has quietly lifted restrictions imposed on Russian citizens and residents more than a year ago. In March 2022, after the European Union imposed sanctions on Russia in response to its attack on Ukraine, Binance announced that it no longer supports payments from Visa and Mastercard cards issued in Russia.
Now it seems that the restriction has been lifted. Users can deposit Russian rubles, euros, British pounds and other currencies from bank cards issued in Russia, reported on Saturday Forklog crypto news portal.
Earlier, Russian users reported that Binance had lifted restrictions on accounts with balances greater than 10,000 euros. The stock exchange did not officially announce any of the changes.
When contacted by CoinDesk, a Binance spokesperson did not confirm or deny the lifting of the restrictions, but said in an email:
“All current restrictions related to sanctions against Russian citizens are fully applied by the platform and its legal entities in the European Union”.
The banning of Russian bank cards last year took place after the EU and the US introduced sanctions against Russia invading Ukraine. Most Russian banks have been cut off from the SWIFT international interbank settlement network. Last spring, the EU widened its sanctions and banned cryptocurrency services from serving Russian users with account balances of more than €10,000. In the fall, this threshold was abolished, making it impossible for Russian citizens and residents to use any EU-registered crypto service. LocalBitcoins, Crypto.com, and Blockchain.com immediately notified Russian users that their accounts would soon be terminated.
When Binance announced the €10,000 cap for users inside Russia, it claimed that “the EU’s fifth package of restrictive measures against Russia” made the restrictions necessary. Although the sanctions are still in place, this restriction no longer exists on Binance, according to media reports. However, last month Binance banned peer-to-peer (p2p) trading in dollars and euros for Russians, leaving only the Russian ruble as an option. A Binance spokesperson confirmed that this restriction still exists.
Back in October last year at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said: “We are against wartime dictatorships. We are not against the population”.
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