Amidst the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, companies across industries have stopped their operations in the former country. Recently, the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance has suspended transactions with Russian VISA and Mastercard cards.
The crypto exchange said that these restrictions apply only to Binance’s crypto-to-fiat service. Moreover, traders can use Russian cards in P2P transactions. However, banking institutions currently under sanctions can’t do that too.
All of this is came from a call from Ukraine on all crypto exchanges to freeze Russian users’ crypto accounts. Although platforms such as Coinbase, Upbit, and Bithumb have imposed restrictions, major crypto exchanges have denied the request of freezing accounts.
Crypto exchanges in South Korea such as Upbit have banned access of Russian IPs to their platform. Moreover, they’ve also rejected withdrawal requests related to Russia. Elaborating on this decision:
“We’ve blocked subscriptions by users in countries which are at high risks of money laundering, in line with the guidelines of the Financial Action Task Force.“
Besides Upbit, Bithumb, Korbit, and Gopax have frozen 20 registered Russian accounts recently. While some crypto exchanges haven’t placed any serious restrictions, they’re doing their part to support the humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
Binance had announced a donation of $10 million for Ukrainian people suffering from military conflict. Moreover, the Binance Charity Foundation gave UNICEF $2.5 million worth of crypto for supporting the citizens of Ukraine.
Since a lot of countries have imposed sanctions on Russia, the government and its pieces of machinery are looking towards digital assets. In fact, many crypto exchanges are witnessing spikes in Russian ruble trading lately.
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