With Binance Exiting Russian Market, What Options Do Russians Have?

As reported on August 28 by The Wall Street Journal, a Binance spokesperson stated that the exchange is exploring all possibilities concerning its presence in Russia, which could even include a complete withdrawal.

This report surfaced after Binance eliminated certain Russian financial institutions subjected to sanctions from their available payment choices on the peer-to-peer platform.

Additionally, restrictions were introduced for users based in Russia involving fiat currency transactions.

Following Binance’s lead, Bybit and OKX have also taken measures to exclude specific Russian banks from their lists of peer-to-peer payment options.

Due to the restrictions, citizens of Russia are now seeking alternative options.

Exploring Binance Alternatives for Russians Amidst Binance Exit

Chinese journalist Colin Wu drew attention to the fact that Russia is the largest market for crypto exchanges. Russia accounts for about 6% of Binance traffic. Turkey has a similar result. In third place is Argentina. The country accounts for 5% of the trading platform traffic.

At the same time, the statistics cited by Colin Wu indicate that Binance is far from the only crypto exchange popular among Russians. Russia was also the largest market for Bybit (19%).

Recall that against the background of the aggravation of relations between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, the trading platform turned out to be one of the few crypto projects that refused to impose sanctions against the Russians.

Related: Top 8 Cryptocurrency Exchanges for Russians

Russia has also become the largest market for the following crypto exchanges: Gate.io (10%), Bitget (16%), Bitfinex (12%) and Huobi (17%).

Surprisingly, Bybit leads with the highest concentration of Russians (19%), closely followed by Huobi (17%). The third spot is secured by Bitget (16%).

Russian citizens are seeking alternatives to Binance due to their aversion to facing the constraints posed on the trading platform. For instance, the P2P platform of the cryptocurrency exchange left Russian users with only a single ruble.

A significant number of individuals in the Russian Federation turned to the platform as a way to navigate around restrictions in the foreign exchange market. This allowed them, for instance, to use Lira to top up their PlayStation accounts.

However, the new regulations implemented by Binance have severed users’ access to all currencies. In contrast, P2P platforms of various other cryptocurrency exchanges, including those listed in the table, continue to offer Russians the ability to engage in buying and selling currencies using rubles.