BestChange responds to Anatoly Shariy’s accusations of blocking cryptocurrency transactions

Pro-Kremlin propagandist Anatoly Shariy, in his Telegram channel, warned of the ‘danger of using’ the BestChange bitcoin-exchange aggregator amid alleged frequent blocking of Russians’ and Ukrainians’ transactions. The service’s representatives responded to the blogger’s accusations in ForkLog’s comments.

Shariy said that he had learned of funds being blocked by Ukrainian cryptocurrency exchanges and exchangers listed on BestChange.

«The cases are not isolated. People from Russia and Ukrainians living in Europe have contacted us, having lost their money and even their savings», the blogger wrote.

According to him, BestChange ‘recommends exchangers that are under the direct supervision of SBU (like CryptoPay24)’, while the exchange ‘often occurs through crypto exchanges (such as the Ukrainian Whitebit), which seize users’ funds under the pretext of a request by Ukrainian law enforcement authorities and closely cooperate with Ukrainian authorities’. Shariy also claimed that these exchanges and exchangers share users’ personal data with Ukrainian authorities ‘even down to IP addresses’.

The blogger intends to hand this information to Russian law enforcement authorities.

Information with elements of speculation and false facts

The senior analyst at BestChange, Nikita Zuborov, told ForkLog that the transaction blocks carried out by the services listed with the aggregator indeed occur ‘much more often than desirable’.

«These are still isolated cases, but there are enough of them now to warrant close scrutiny and to change the operating logic in light of the new risks»,” he said.

He noted that the information presented by Shariy has ‘content with elements of conjecture and false facts’. The aggregator BestChange itself is not involved in the blocking of funds — it occurs on the side of exchanges and exchangers due to triggering a flag during KYC checks:

«Transaction-safety services showed the maximum risk level (risk score 100%)».

Meanwhile, despite no legal linkage between monitoring and the exchange point, the aggregator provided support to users to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.

«Ultimately the exchange point decided to refund from personal funds, despite the continued freezing of funds on the exchange side. Shariy chose not to publish separate posts about this, probably because it does not fit his politically biased position», — added Zuborov.

Today, BestChange is developing measures to better inform users about the need for AML checks. The aggregator plans to require exchanges to describe AML procedures more clearly when submitting requests and to implement traffic separation protocols by country to minimise cross-jurisdictional exposures.

«We plan to limit traffic from Russia to exchanges that use high-risk blocking brokers due to sanctions. We will also adjust the ranking system for custodial services taking into account their blocking practices», — the analyst added.

As of writing, the aggregator remains accessible to citizens of any country without exception: monitoring includes filters to search for Ukrainian banks alongside Russian, Belarusian, Kazakh and other financial institutions.

BestChange seriously weighs the prospect of Shariy approaching law enforcement for blocking requests.

«We have faced blocking threats for various reasons before, and courts typically favour the logic in their rulings. Therefore, even if it goes that far, we hope our resource will continue to operate without hindrance for residents of any country, including Russia», — said Nikita Zuborov.

AML policy of Ukrainian services

WhiteBIT told ForkLog that the exchange partnered with the decentralised security protocol HAPI to prevent malicious activity in the blockchain industry. Simultaneously HAPI collaborates with the SBU and Ukraine’s cyber police. The project also launched the Scamfari service, which pays rewards for information about fundraising for the needs of the Russian army.

Earlier ForkLog reported that WhiteBIT interacts with ARMA for sharing information about bitcoin-wallet owners in criminal proceedings.

In CryptoPay24’s exchange, editors noted that in all blocked cases the clients’ funds bore 100% tags of ‘Sanctions’ and ‘Risk’. These tags on wallet clusters were added at the request of Ukrainian authorities. 

«In accordance with the recommendations of global regulators, these funds were blocked by our liquidity provider. There is no talk of any cooperation with any structures. Any service that at least follows a simple AML policy would have blocked these funds», — said representatives of the exchange.

The post by Shariy they described as a method of public pressure «with manipulation of the political situation».

In CryptoPay24, they also explained that user funds may be blocked before completing the KYC procedure if the transaction does not pass AML checks. Clients are informed about this before creating an order and give their consent.

«We are not observing any universal blocks. Everything is in operation», — emphasized the exchanger.

When asked about providing IP addresses of clients to law enforcement, CryptoPay24 stated that transferring user data is possible «only in cases where the law requires it».

As a reminder, the BestChange bitcoin-exchanger aggregator has repeatedly been blocked by Roskomnadzor for disseminating prohibited information about the possibility to buy bitcoin and pay for certain goods with it. Court sessions were held in the absence of the defendant.

In December 2020, BestChange was delisted from the list of banned sites in Russia. 

On 21 October 2022, the service was removed from the list of banned resources in Uzbekistan.

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