Topic: Binance blocks crypto accounts of relatives tied to the Russian government (Read 327 times)

Are Russian citizens innocent that their country, with heavy armored vehicles, invaded the sovereign state of Ukraine? Are they innocent that their husbands, brothers and sons are now massively killing truly innocent civilians in Ukraine and deliberately destroying schools, hospitals, residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure in Ukraine? And then who is to blame, only Putin? But he doesn't kill directly. He sends Russian citizens to kill Ukrainians, and the execution of a criminal order is also a crime. Moreover, even now, according to a recent poll, 73 percent of the Russian population supports Putin's actions in his genocide of the Ukrainian people.
No, all citizens of Russia are guilty of the fact that citizens of Ukraine are now massively dying and their economy is being deliberately destroyed. The people must control their elected government. If for some reason he cannot or does not want to do this, he is responsible for the actions of his government, which means that the people are to blame for the criminal actions of the one who runs the state on their behalf.

I agree. Even though I dislike Russians as much as the next guy, I do not think that it is a good way to approach this situation for a crypto company. We should be focusing a bit more on the side of the decentralized hands-off approach to crypto.

As a company they are burdened to follow whatever nations law they are following, and if there are sanctions there and they are told to freeze the accounts then there isn't much Binance could have done, but it is still not a thing they had to do, they could have given a warning before hand for people from Russia to withdraw their money and make a bit of a profit for them that way as well, since they would be able to withdraw their money beforehand.

Seeing the responses and thinking more about this, I really see this as a bad move by Binance. People trusted their centralized exchange and went through all the trouble of trusting and exposing their real identities to this exchange and in return Binance does this. Binance as an exchange specially one that is on this industry that values privacy and independence to some extent, should not be influenced or if needed be just a bit but not fully controlled by any government. I honestly expected Binance to at least have some backbone.

Well, we can't blame people who use centralized exchanges too since not everyone has access to reputable people or platforms that does peer to peer trading. Investing and converting to fiat is difficult for some places in the world and exchanges or custodial wallets that offer creditcard deposits or bank transfers are what most people prefer than risking to transact with people they do not know.

 
This is true about CEX but i think every cryptopreneurs need to understand why they should be avoided, for me now, i know that using CEX will cost me than the benefits i stand to derive from using it, so I maintain my scope, what about others that don't know how to go about, neither does they know the difference between CEX and DEX, and i think as the adoption widens so are many user's getting exposed to knowing more about this, just a pity that some already fall a victim before realizing that.

I'm not a political person, and I dislike having political arguments but I feel exchanges are going the extra mile to harm people with the lock of accounts, it is not anyone's fault the governments in power are fighting themselves. I have seen a couple of complaints from Bitsamp exchange users that their account has been locked too with the deposit and withdraw option being disabled, that's so uncalled for but by the way, this is what you get in return when they tell you to stop using centralized exchanges but no one wants to listen.

Now that there are situations which you could possibly be tied up to have some relatives on Russia if you do make out in  between transactions then people would be aware and wont tend to make out any connections but its true that not all transactions would really be known if they are really that relative or something that do make out transactions totally in random or doesnt really know each other.
So its not really just that precise nor that accurate when it comes to pointing out fingers on who would be the one will really be that be affected with this decision.

If you read carefully, sanctions have been imposed:
- against companies
- industry
- against government officials and their relatives
- against natural persons and their relatives.
This was done for a reason, but in order to maximally block the possibility of avoiding punishment. Did you think the sanctions would be only against those whose workplace is indicated by the "Kremlin"? This is really stupid!
Now the Russians involved in crimes that surpassed the crimes of Nazi Germany will be "nailed down" like fleeing cockroaches from a garbage pit, wherever possible, wherever they are caught, by any available method - blocking any means, seizing assets, criminal prosecution.

In a sense, maybe? lol. But yes, your opinions are greatly appreciated.

If I'm not mistaken, this was probably done with the goal of creating a wider scale assistance to the sanctions imposed on Russians. This may be an attempt to hinder other relatives of Russian people to still be able to evade the sanctions via crypto and so they extend the bans to relatives which would make it impossible for Russians to pass assets on relatives outside of Russia and make them do the trading, investing or liquidating.

And about the ways, I must say that what you're telling me right now is quite absurd. I mean, this can possibly happen(which I hope doesn't) but yeah, I think they just made use of the technology nowadays instead of resorting to such means.

Ah so you want us to help you decide? Well, for me this action is improper because number one, Russian citizens are innocent and it wasn't their fault on why there is a war between their country and Ukraine.

Number two is, the person is away from the country of Russian but the sanctions are only supposed to happen under the country of Russia and I am curious if how they will know that the person is relative from those who live in Russia? Did the authorities force them to tell? And maybe they give threats that if they don't tell, the truth, something bad will happen to them. They don't have a choice and their relatives but to follow the order.

Agree, it is extreme.  I also can't imagine Binance would have appointed someone with that title had it not been for some governmental influence being exerted.  And just so no one misunderstands where I'm coming from, I'm not anti-Ukraine by any means.  I just think politics should be left out of places where it doesn't belong, and the world of cryptocurrency is one of them.

Again, I can't argue with that one bit--but we all know how important crypto exchanges are, whether you're leaving your coins on there or not.  If they don't care at all about what cryptocurrency originally stood for, then I'd say that's a major problem.

Wow, this is a bit extreme, ... having somebody appointed as "head of sanctions"... I would be laughing if it wouldn't be as much concerning (as lame).
And about concerns on centralization... we both know that whoever keeps there more funds than he can easily lose, he deserves his fate. Not your keys, not your coins.

The way I see it, only a few are left that truly cares about privacy. Specially now that mass adoption requires at least a bit of centralization.

And yes, I agree that what binance did is truly alarming. This just shows that binance has let go of it's last bit of consideration for the decentralization that this industry mainly stands for (other than fixing existing problems) in exchange of being able to freely operate and grow their business.

Although as a crypto holder and trader myself, I admit that I agree to compromise as well and disclose personal information just to be able make use of what I earn along with the profits I gain through trading since it is much easier to deposit when using fiat on centralized exchanges (specially on binance here in my country). Life is tough, it is  what it is. But that does not mean that I am willing to put up with all the crap an exchange does which can endanger my hard earned assets.

TBH, I right now am currently hopping from one exchange to another looking for the most crypto enthusiast friendly ones. Not that I am expecting much from centralized exchanges but at least a bit more reasonable approach and has some back bone to not make unreasonable bans or whatever unless the matter involves issues between the exchange itself and the user and not some outside variables like government conflicts etc.

See, if binance can do it to the relatives of Russian people, then it can certainly do it to me and the others as well. Only thing binance needs to do is make up an excuse and we can get ourselves banned right there and then.

I honestly do not use binance that much anymore. Except for depositing fiat or for trading alts that are not on other exchanges. although some of binance's features along with their earn sections were quite appealing to me back then, it is not that worth it in my eyes anymore after a few things that they did and also because of the fact that there currently are better offers on other exchanges nowadays.

If one day, another good crypto exchange becomes available here in my country that supports or has the features I need which binance currently has I'd definitely forget about the existence of binance.

Whew, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who caught that contradiction.  I'm not sure if that member is just writing nonsense to boost his post count or doesn't understand English well enough to convey his opinion correctly.  Very weird.

In any case, I was thinking about this some more, and I wonder how people would feel if Theymos suddenly decided to ban all accounts from Russian IPs or a similar action.  I'm guessing opinions would be very much mixed, but my point is that sanctions against Russia as a country or even specific individuals who had no say in Putin's war end up hurting innocent people.  Maybe not all of them are, but certainly there are some who are innocent.  That's unfair, akin to holding hostages IMO.

Your argumentation does contradict which you had said that they have nothing to do with political issues and argues but you do agree on what Binance had been doing?
They should do the opposite but we know that these platforms are regulated  which this is really just that subjective into particular laws and rules
which its understandable that even if Binance doesnt really want to do such gesture but they dont really have any choice for them to avoid or
ignore on whats mandated.

I think this is the absolutely correct decision, the Russian users of crypto platforms have nothing to do with what the Russian government is doing. When Putin or the Russian government decided to invade Ukraine, they did not take the consent of the Russian citizens to do so. Crypto users have nothing to do with politics so they cannot be held accountable for the political mistakes of their governments. All exchanges that have banned Russian users should do exactly the same as Binance.

There may be valid reasons why binance is now blocking accounts tied to Russian government. One I think, is the tight regulations where they are operating. Because at the early days of war, binance was still servicing all users, whether you are a Russian or not. And now, they started to restrict their services. So they may also be preparing for the sanctions that are being implemented on crypto businesses that are still catering Russians and other relatives. We can't blame if they resort to this move. If by any chance you have relation with Russians, better secure your funds in your own noncustodial wallet.

The idea of choosing in a conflict like this doesn't sound so well to me and I think that's what Binance did by blocking the Russians. And I think a move like this might backfires at a later time on Binance.

well, this is one of the negative effects of war. even, when you are not directly involved with them, but you are in the area, you can be affected. Apart from that, I think Binance is also being urged by regulations so that people immediately stop the war. Therefore, I also agree that people who feel connected to all of this should keep their assets safe from these exchanges. we don't know what kind of regulation there will be for Russia in the future in the international world. I hope that this is all over soon.

That's true, but that saying usually only applies to what's happening in the military, not relatively small financial institutions, which is what I think Binance qualifies as.

Agreed.  I can't imagine that they'd do this on their own, although I don't really know much about Binance, who's in charge, and what their political leanings are (if any). 

And no, I don't think this is right at all.  Just look at this:


Global head of sanctions. 

Are any of us still concerned about privacy and centralization?  Or does any of that apply only when a crypto exchange is fucking someone else over?  What happens when an exchange suddenly finds a reason to target you for whatever reason they make up on the spot?  No matter what your opinion is about Russia, those people who got blocked probably weren't involved in any of the political decision making in Putin's circle when the war started.  This doesn't help anything, and frankly I've lost a ton of respect for Binance and whatever trust I had in them as an exchange is gone.

I think binance as a CEX is allowing a total control of itself to be manipulated for reason to achieve the full short down of the Putin government. The names that their accounts have been banned are mostly supporters of Putin and they have also been banned by the US government. The picture is clear with the unfolding of the happenings going on with Russia and Ukraine with the NATO and EU influence.