On Thursday, 24 September, users in Russia began reporting problems accessing the LocalBitcoins mirror site of the p2p platform for buying and selling bitcoin.
According to Roskomnadzor, the mirror site for users from Russia LocalBitcoins.net has been listed in the Unified Register of Prohibited Resources on the basis of a decision by the Onezhsky City Court of the Arkhangelsk Oblast dated 21 July 2020.
Data: Roskomnadzor.
The blocking was prompted by a prosecutor’s suit challenging the dissemination of information about cryptocurrency quotes and related operations. The prosecution, as usual, cited the Federal Law ‘On the Central Bank of the Russian Federation’ and the statements by Rosfinmonitoring and the Central Bank on the use of cryptocurrencies.
In issuing the decision, the court relied on the article of the Administrative Code on ‘violation of the manner of handling cash and the procedure for cash operations, as well as violations of the requirements for using special bank accounts’.
CEO of the P2P platform Bitzlato Mikhail Lunev is confident that the platform’s blockage will not affect user behaviour:
\”A couple of months ago Roskomnadzor blocked us as well. We had to move to mirrors and urgently “fix” the site, but we did not notice an exodus of users. Clients continued trading via the Telegram bot BTC banker. This is our main product without mandatory KYC.\”
The main LocalBitcoins.com site was added to the prohibited register in July 2016 by the decision of the Primorsky District Court of Saint Petersburg.
CEO of the exchange Paybis Paybis Innokenty Isers criticized Roskomnadzor’s decision:
\”Russian authorities first and foremost want to ban everything. It’s a dangerous practice. Our market needs regulation, clear rules of the game and mechanisms that will prevent using cryptocurrency for criminal purposes. We have licenses in several regions, we run our business honestly and are not afraid of blockades. But if something like this happens, and under a pretext pulled from thin air, it will be easier for us to leave this market.\”
In 2017, the court refused to restore the deadline for filing an appeal in the case of the blockage.
Earlier in Russia, for disseminating prohibited information, the cryptocurrency portal BestChange and the news site Coinpost were blocked.
Subscribe to ForkLog news on Telegram: ForkLog Feed — the full news feed, ForkLog — the most important news and polls.
\n