Star Xu, CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange OKX, is wary of following in the footsteps of former Binance chief Changpeng Zhao, making strict compliance a priority for the platform. This was stated by Blum co-founder Gleb Kostarev.
Citing reliable sources within OKX, he noted that a large team is dedicated to compliance issues. Despite the vast Russian market, exiting it would mean significant financial losses for the exchange, regulatory pressures and sanctions compel caution.
“Under these conditions, Russia inevitably remains a high-risk zone, attracting regulatory attention. I assume that OKX will try to avoid repeating Binance’s scenario of a complete market exit, but will gradually reduce its presence in Russia to minimize risks,” Kostarev wrote.
According to him, OKX generally exercises caution in its global operations, not just in Russia.
“The exchange avoids aggressively increasing its market share, aiming to maintain its top position without becoming a leader. In the long term, it seeks to become a ‘clean and compliant’ platform, akin to Coinbase. This is particularly important given its significant presence in the US with offices in California,” the expert explained.
Kostarev believes that in such conditions, requests for additional transaction information from compliance are quite logical.
“[Given the recent partial legalization of cryptocurrencies in Russia], we will likely see further tightening of control by top centralized platforms regarding Russians,” he suggested.
Faced with a block on OKX, the author of the Telegram channel “Tears of Satoshi,” Rafael Manvelyan, commented on accusations of using sanctioned services. He stated that he has never been a client of the Garantex exchange, has not used DeFi protocols like Tornado Cash, and is not personally on any sanctions list.
“OKX claims that I allegedly sent some sanctioned stablecoins to the exchange. I do not rule out that this is possible. I am not a stablecoin issuer—they initially come to me from other addresses, often unknown to me. The transaction chain is enormous and beyond the capacity of even large products to verify,” Manvelyan stated.
He reminded that cryptocurrency that has passed verification can become tainted retroactively if one of its previous holders’ addresses is added to a sanctions list. In this case, all risks fall on the users, not the exchange.
Manvelyan is unaware of which of his transactions OKX classified as “tainted and sanctioned.” He is convinced that most Russians dealing with cryptocurrencies inevitably receive stablecoins generated on the Garantex exchange, as it is “the only one operating on a large scale.” Therefore, the risk of suddenly receiving assets from there and facing a block is high.
The blogger proposed implementing a tool on exchanges that comply with US regulatory requirements and serve Russians, allowing users to check the origin of funds when depositing and credit only clean assets.
“After the check, issue a report that allows the citizen to prove that they have done everything necessary on their part to avoid being a scapegoat,” Manvelyan added.
Earlier, rumors spread online about alleged mass account blocks of Russian users on OKX. The head of the exchange responded by explaining that the situation affected a limited number of users who violated platform rules.