Topic: The role of crypto exchanges in this war after removing the Russia from Swift (Read 362 times)

Centralized system on a global scale are never good, on a much smaller scale (domestic, inside one country) makes more sense. Take United Nations for example, it is a political organization that only serves a handful of regimes while it is completely useless for the rest of the world.

That's not much of a decentralization, it is more like polarization where two or more "power poles" are created. The most possible outcome is 2 power houses, one in the west (US+NATO) and one in the east (SCO countries).

You know what is the paradox? You ban Russia from Swift but still continue trade with it but in this case, in Roubles, in their own national currency. I think the USA and the EU are not killing Russia but making it stronger. This war Between Russia and Ukraine and these sanctions clearly made it clear that a centralized system can suffocate the one it wishes. The centralized system is great if it's in good hands but was there a time when it was in goods hands? Definitely, there were some but in hundreds of cases, the centralized system was never in good hands.

At the moment I think that without a centralized system Russia wouldn't be punished and it's good that they are being punished but the punishment is so weak, I am afraid it will make them stronger.

Definitely, the world will try to decentralize from one power and instead make more and more centralized unions: USA/Canada and probably some other countries together, European Union with France/Germany leadership together, Russia and some post-soviet countries together, etc.

Russia uses SPFS.

The role of bitcoin in Russia has been blown out of proportion, partly because of the sanctions and partly because of some of the official statements made about using bitcoin for payments. In the end the world has been moving from centralization of power (eg. 1 SWIFT for the whole world) to a multipolar world where the power isn't so centralized. All these sanctions are speeding up that process.
We now know that Russia has forced all the European countries that sanctioned Russia but continue paying them to do it using their currency (Ruble). I don't know what payment system they use but it is not SWIFT...

It is not silent, it's just that it became "old news" which is a commentary on society's low attention span. Otherwise in first 2 weeks the forum was filled with such topics. This topic itself is old.

Why is there so much silence in the forum. Seems like no one is much interested in war and affects.
I wish to hear more about what members think about the topic. Looking fwd.

These options may not offer a real alternative to Russia, given that the number of subscribers to the swift system is much greater than the number of subscribers to the Russian system. The real crisis for Russia as a result of the sanctions began with the activation of this decision, and according to the current situation, Russia is looking for an alternative.
I also don't think cryptocurrency exchanges really offer an alternative that can be tapped into for a country the size of Russia.

Great info shared. I would keep coming to the forum to know what other member think about it.
There are so much behind the screen going that general public is unaware of. Thanks once again.

Well, it seems to be the most rational way. Since asia would soon become a russia's main trade partner, it might be reasonable to either use asian UnionPay or even request asian partners to set up account in a russian payment system.

The entire conversation regarding russia and crypto only comes from shitty websites that want to speculate on this topic and get some traffic. Nothing in Russia tells us they would be using crypto.


There is no point of making a "russian exchange". Even if you set up one while being in russia it would be still easier to make offshore registration for it.

Yes, of course. As a matter of fact, Binance has made it clear that what it will not implement is a unilateral freezing of Russian accounts, which means that Binance will never issue a blanket ban on Russian users on their own. However, with a legal order, Binance is more than willing to comply and impose sanctions which may include a blanket ban on Russian accounts.

In the words of CZ himself, "Binance follows international sanction rules strictly." Furthermore, "Binance applies the same sanctions rules as the banks, according to international standards." Therefore, "if governments introduce new sanctions that include off-boarding users then we will apply those aggressively as well."^[1]

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[1] https://www.binance.com/en/blog/leadership/ukraine-russia-sanctions-and-crypto-421499824684903532

All this shitty situation is going perfectly in favor of China who are still remaining weirdly quiet, but they have several alternative options for SWIFT.
They even have system called UnionPay that can be used as alternative for MasterCard and Visa, and they have agreement cooperation with big countries like India and Russia.
I don't think they will switch to using crypto exchanges for several reasons, one of them is not having full control over them, except if they are used only for trading centralized government garbage coins.
I wouldn't trust any centralized exchange and it's always better to have coins on your own wallet that you can control.

What they stated was that they were not going to ban the entire country at the moment simply because the Ukraine government asked them to. They have not and can not rule out banning Russian users in the future. They already ban specific users, and could ban more individual users at any time. The Ukrainian government have also they are pursuing legal action to force Binance to block Russian users. If faced with a choice of removing service to Russia, or having their operations restricted across the rest of Europe, North America, Australia, etc., then it is obvious which one they are going to pick.

The CEO of Kraken spelled it out quite simply here: https://nitter.net/jespow/status/1498112741684363265

It's either they would use the KYC information they gather from users or by way of IP or they would remove the Russian ruble as a fiat option altogether. Last I read, Binance accounts for the largest crypto to ruble and vice versa trades. The exchange implements mandatory KYC to each and every user, but Russians don't have to panic as Binance has clearly stated that they wouldn't be implementing a ban on Russian users. It would be a different case for individuals who are specifically targeted by sanctions, though.

Anyway, I can remember Livecoin was based in Russia. But it's not active anymore. YoBit used to be based in Moscow as well. But I think they've already moved their headquarter to another country. I think Waves Exchange is still based in Russia until now. It is interesting to note that in the middle of this invasion, Waves, I'm referring to the coin, has more than doubled its price for the past days. The volume has also almost doubled. As a matter of fact, even with the entire market currently soaked in blood, Waves has registered almost 60% in growth for the past 24 hours. I reckon the demand of this Russian-based coin is generally local.

You doubt, but you don't know the case? Have you even read the article and reviewed the evidence presented or are you just talking out of your ass?
Maybe it would be best to first think about how you can respond without sounding incompetent and clueless.

I'm not sure what the connection between CREX24 exchange and 1xBET is, and personally I doubt there is any, but I don't know the case. As for 1XBET and their ties to Russia, as far as I know, the owners had problems with the Russian tax office. They themselves (the owners of 1XBET) obtained the citizenship of Cyprus and the company also moved there. Apart from the history related to Russia, at this point 1XBET has little to do with Russia. At least that's the official information.

As for whether the sanctions against Russia will affect the cryptocurrency market, in my opinion this is a big one, but in the long term. I think this situation will draw many people's attention to cryptocurrencies as an alternative financial market. Certainly, many people will notice a lot of positive things in the crypto world and will look for opportunities to use them in the future. However, now, in my opinion, the war will have a negative impact on cryptocurrency market.

There is an interesting thread in the Scam accusation board regarding the CREX24.com exchange being linked to Russian scammers running a notorious 1XBET casino.

While the concerns about the legitimacy of the site has been raised for a while, it's only now that we have proof, or at least credible speculation, of CREX24.com owners.

Major exchanges have a certain level of KYC to transact within certain limits. If you mean a Russian institution masquerading as an individual taking advantage of a major exchange account, a ban on account withdrawals/blocking can actually be done easily without any effect on "real" Russian individual users with that KYC.

When reading binance policy lately, the RUB withdrawal ban probably won't happen, it's just that some methods (eg partner banks) are not available. Because it is also useless for the exchange to list too long a currency that is in hyperinflation. Then otherwise, RUB deposit will be disabled.

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I looked at the Exchanges(russia) board, none of them tried to list the trading exchanges (spot/futures/ect). But instant bitcoin to RUB/USDT exchange service platforms seem to be found on the board a lot. So, Russians have an alternative to exchanging their bitcoins.

People in Russia don't want to sell their bitcoin for rubles right now; the exact opposite, in fact. There is a bank run going on, the price of the ruble is dropping fast, they are refusing to open their markets because of the fallout, the interest rate has jumped to 20%, and so on. Holding rubles right now is an insane move. Look at the charts from Binance, for example: https://nomics.com/exchanges/binance/markets/BTCRUB. Trading volume has gone from an average of around 50 BTC a day to a spike of over 400 BTC a day. Despite the price of BTC being down around $2000 in the last few days, the price in rubles is up almost 30%. There is a huge demand for bitcoin in Russia right now, and people are paying a premium to buy it. People don't want to withdraw rubles from exchanges - they want to withdraw bitcoin.

Having said all that, exchanges could still freeze Russian accounts based on registered address, KYC details, IP location, and so on. A bad time to be an innocent Russia civilian right now, with such insane leadership in charge.

The exchanges will have to comply with any sanctions imposed on Russia. This likely means they will be unable to send any fiat money to Russia. If there is a sanctioned person who has an account with an exchange, they will be unable to access their money.

I apologize if it's a stupid question, but how exactly can exchanges ban fiat withdrawals for Russian accounts? This would mean that all exchanges have KYC of their customers but this is not always the case.

By the way, are there any crypto exchanges based in Russia? Is there a list somewhere?

Well, either way, even if the exchanges still don't ban the withdrawal/deposit, Russians going to have a hard time to conduct the FIAT transaction noting they have been cut off from the SWIFT, so the exchanges may doesn't directly need to ban them.

that is the most likely scenario, Russia will be banned from all exchanges due to sanctions.
Bitcoin offers the possibility of circumventing the bans, but in this case, they will turn even legal money into illegal. I'm not sure how much it helps.
the isolation of a country's financial system must certainly have consequences for it, no matter how rich she was.

US, European Union and their allies have agreed to cut off major Russian banks from SWIFT.
SWIFT means "Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication".

Short and Important information:
1. Swift is based in Belgium and facilitates transactions between 11 000 banks and financial institutions over 200 countries and territories.
2. In full-year 2021, SWIFT recorded an average of 42.0 million FIN messages per day.
3. More than 1 percent of those messages are thought to involve Russian payments.
4. Oil and Gas exports make up to 40% of the country’s revenue (3rd largest oil producer).
5. The largest Russian Oil and Gas importers won't be able to pay Russia after the Swift ban.
6. Russian alternative to Swift is SPFS - "Russia’s System for Transfer of Financial Messages". This system only works within Russia.
7. Russia will be able to trade with China since it has it's own payment system called CIPS - Cross-Border Interbank Payment System.

A lot of people say that an alternative for Russia can be a bitcoin but without a doubt, those countries who agree to ban Russia from Swift, won't use cryptocurrencies. I believe that other countries will not move their hand on cryptocurrencies to trade with Russia.

But Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can be used by individuals to send/receive money from Russia to other countries. You need an exchange and/or crypto ATM to convert money into USD or RUB. What if major exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, HitBTC will ban fiat withdrawals for Russia or even ban Russian accounts and/or people with Russian passports? Will US, EU and allies discuss this task? Can it have a significant effect on Russia?

EDIT: If this topic better belongs to Politics & Society or Economics board, moderators, please move it.