Binance announced that as of January 31st, 2024, they will permanently stop supporting Russian ruble trading pairs on their peer-to-peer (P2P) platform.
Users will still have several options to withdraw existing ruble funds, including through Binance’s fiat partners, converting to cryptocurrency via Binance Convert, or exchanging for other currencies on the Binance spot market. Binance also suggested transferring ruble assets to their Russian affiliate CommEX, which acquired Binance’s Russian business in September.
The decision to suspend ruble trading comes as Binance looks to increase compliance with sanctions against Russia. Binance claims they are following a systematic one-year transition plan for exiting the Russian market. However, the U.S. Department of Justice is reportedly investigating Binance for potentially violating Russian sanctions.
Binance halted ruble deposits on November 15th and will continue supporting withdrawals until January 31st, 2024. They have also already removed major cryptocurrency trading pairs with the ruble back in November. Furthermore, Binance ended its partnership with the Advcash payment system over concerns that sanctioned Russian banks were channeling transfers through it.
