The halting of Binance’s activities in Russia is unprofitable primarily for the cryptocurrency exchange itself, so such a scenario is extremely unlikely. This was stated by ForkLog experts surveyed.
According to senior analyst Nikita Zuborev of aggregator BestChange, Russian users constitute a noticeable share of Binance’s client base, and their outflow, while not catastrophic, could noticeably reduce activity on the exchange.
In addition to business, this “politicised move” will affect the platform’s reputation in other countries.
«One thing, if they had done this two years ago, on the wave of mass censorship, would be one thing, and another — if they do it calculatedly right now, when everyone else is moving toward targeted restrictions. Many countries in Africa and Latin America may try this scenario for themselves, and will thus avoid an exchange where policy is above common sense», — said Zuborev.
Suspicions that Binance helped Russians circumvent sanctions, the expert called abstract and difficult to prove in practice. He is convinced that for most politicians “the restrictions on fiat currencies already in place” will suffice, so there is no need to completely discontinue servicing Russians.
Sorting users not by passport but by country of residence is technically hard.
«Imposing different restrictions for these two groups is fairly easy, but fully denying service to any of them would be a more serious challenge — what withdrawal period, in what form they can be withdrawn, what to do with rubles in their accounts, will support cope with the surge in requests», — the expert muses.
How will this affect users?
The exchange’s stance on dividing Russians into those living in Russia and those abroad is not yet clear.
«If the split happens, one can speak of many people who will leave the country “on paper,” to pass KYC, and thus they will remain on Binance. But if we speak of a total passport ban, then the audience will scatter again across various resources that have never imposed restrictions», — guessed Zuborev.
Among those he named are Huobi, Gate.io, EXMO and BingX.
Simultaneously, outflow of Russian users could also occur from other trading platforms promoting bans amid investigations against Binance, for example Bybit.
However, overall Zuborev does not consider the situation critical and does not rule out the emergence of new players in this segment. He also suggests that existing exchanges could legally separate business in the CIS from the rest of the world, by analogy with the US market.
«Beyond exchanges, there remains the off-exchange segment — independent P2P platforms and exchange points. In terms of access to this instrument, it will never disappear; there may be varying degrees of difficulty in finding the necessary sites, but it is only a matter of time», — added the senior BestChange analyst.
A compromise with regulators
Circumstances for Binance are highly complex. Under sanctions, the exchange already blocks work with a number of Russian banks and introduces restrictions on the allowable amount of funds.
«Although various scenarios for developments are possible, for now Binance has not left Russia and continues to cooperate with Russian specialists», — said Dmitry Machikhin, founder and CEO of BitOK.
He emphasised that those operating on the Russian market licenced platforms are obliged to comply with certain measures, but in fact none of them has fully left the jurisdiction.
«I don’t think we should expect a flood of changes. Binance is a very large platform, operating in different countries. And to balance with regulators, sometimes one has to compromise and yield to pressure», — concluded Machikhin.
According to journalist Colin Wu, in June Russians generated the majority of traffic for the Binance exchange.
Recall that recently Binance, Bybit and OKX removed from their P2P platforms banks under U.S. sanctions “Sber”, “Tinkoff” and “Alfa”. The first also barred Russians from exchange operations with any fiat currencies other than the ruble.
One of ForkLog’s experts surveyed proposed to consider blocking exchanges introducing restrictions in Russia.