The ruble was shown the exit – Kommersant FM

Binance will completely stop operations with the ruble. Trading in Russian currency was available on the P2P platform. Now users will not be able to buy digital assets from each other for rubles through the mediation of Binance. The restrictions will come into force on January 31. The platform invites Russians to continue trading on the CommEX exchange. Binance said it sold the local business to her.

But can this site be trusted? Partner of the consulting company Digital & Analogue Partners Yuri Borisov has doubts:

“CommEX still raises great doubts among users, since this exchange is most likely affiliated with Binance. This follows from the behavioral patterns that accompanied the emergence of CommEX. The platform is clearly advertised by Binance and appeared on the day it announced its departure. And we know nothing about CommEX participants, its creators, and so on.

Binance is currently under serious investigation, much of it related to money laundering. In many ways, it is being carried out precisely because Binance facilitated Russians to carry out transactions bypassing sanctions. Therefore, CommEX, on the one hand, does not provide any user confidence and convenience that was on Binance, and, on the other hand, raises questions related to legal reliability and transparency.

For users who view Binance as just some kind of toy or alternative investment experiment, the easiest option, of course, is to move to CommEX. But serious investors or those who are somehow connected with crypto-assets in their professional activities are unlikely to consider this platform.”

At the same time, international crypto exchanges working with Russians still remain. One of the largest is the Bybit platform, headquartered in the United Arab Emirates. But the problem is that cooperation with Russia may attract the attention of Western regulators, notes Vladimir Smerkis, former director of Beinens in the CIS:

“Other platforms with P2P and other formats operate successfully in Russia. You can exchange your regular money, rubles, for example, for cryptocurrencies on Asian platforms – Bybit, Bitget, OKX and many others.

It is clear that they are less reliable. After all, people are accustomed to trusting the market leader. If we talk about Binance’s share, it was about 60%. The closest competitors have 13-15%. But, on the other hand, these are also large platforms. For example, CoinMarketCap’s trading volumes and reserves are significant. These sites also travel around the countries, collecting licenses.

Another question is whether American or European regulators will come to them. It seems that the case with American pressure will not end on Binance. And therefore, great hope, of course, rests on local exchanges. There should certainly be a lot of them in the CIS.

I have no doubt that Russians will continue to look for opportunities to trade P2P in one way or another until the last minute, because there are still a large number of companies associated with the market. There are so-called professional merchants with teams of 10 to 30 people who trade professionally, earning the difference in price between buying and selling. Of course, now they will all be out of work and will be looking for a new place.

But Binance still needs to be transparent to the Americans, to the Europeans. I think the story with “yellow”, “red”, “green” and “blue” banks will no longer pass.”

As of November 15, Binance stopped accepting deposits in Russian rubles. And from November 20, it removed ruble pairs from the spot platform. You can withdraw money until the end of January.

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Ilya Sizov