5 ms·

Binance to terminate Russian ruble deposits

61 points by lxm 3y ago

Joker_vD 3y ago
Well, good thing you don't have to rely on centralized, government-controlled banks and currency exchanges to conduct business with people in the sanctioned countries and can use cryptocurrencies instead.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  While that's true, it's quite impractical to just use cryptos alone for anything really useful. Maybe in time that will change but this will have some impact IMO.
- smegsicle 3y ago
  this is such an ill-informed take- binance is huge, there's nothing like it in russia with every exchange in the world refusing to work with rubles, the russian people are becoming completely cut off from crypto markets
  - vore 3y ago
    Oh no!! What will they do??
    - meepmorp 3y ago
      Double down on invading their neighbors?
      - lionkor 3y ago
        Classy. FYI the population is not invading, the government and military is. You can go there and take a look, its not too hard to go and see that the people are normal people like anyone else. You can even talk to them.
        justrealist 3y ago
        https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/russians-are-split-over-benefits-military-action-ukraine https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/rus... > At the same time, support for the Russian military action has neither increased nor decreased. Three in four Russians (76%) continue to say they support the military operation, with 43 percent expressing strong support and 33 percent somewhat supporting it. Apologies if I accidentally condemn the 24% of Russians who aren't neofascists (and yet, can't be bothered to protest, lest the state get upset).
        orphea 3y ago
        > and yet, can't be bothered to protest You go to prison for making anti-war statements in Russia, you know? https://meduza.io/en/news/2023/11/08/prosecution-requests-eight-year-sentence-for-sasha-skochilenko-st-petersburg-artist-who-replaced-price-tags-with-information-about-war-in-ukraine https://meduza.io/en/news/2023/11/08/prosecution-requests-ei... Eight. Fucking. Years. For some anti-war price tags. The same sentence you get if you plant drugs as a group of corrupted cops. https://meduza.io/en/news/2021/06/07/ex-police-officers-convicted-in-the-golunov-case-challenge-verdict https://meduza.io/en/news/2021/06/07/ex-police-officers-conv...
        justrealist 3y ago
        Yes, that is my point. Russian liberals are only anemically willing to be anti-war when that stance cannot personally hurt them, and certainly not opposed enough that they are willing to leave Russia. It may shock you to know that in some countries[1], dissidents have been willing to take personal risk of jail time to make their voice heard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela
        orphea 3y ago
        It may shock you to know that in some countries[1][2], dissidents have been willing to take personal risk of jail time to make their voice heard. Or being killed. [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Yashin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Yashin [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Nemtsov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Nemtsov
  - Hoefner 3y ago
    Can't russians just use and deposit usd or any other currency instead?
    - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
      Sure - if they have some bank that isn't sanctioned (AFAIK there are 0 domestic banks not sanctioned) - or money already outside of Russia (only the rich, and most of the mega rich are sanctioned individually).
      - flamey 3y ago
        you know wrong
      - pshirshov 3y ago
        Unfortunately no. Gazprombank, Raiffeisenbank and Rosselkhozbank are partially sanctioned but operational - they allow to do swift transfers, their own native transfers to select post-soviet countries and their unionpay cards work relatively well outside of russia.
    - victorbjorklund 3y ago
      And where will they convert their rubels to USD?
      - Hoefner 3y ago
        Probably lots of countries and people still doing business (and trading) in russia who needs RUB. So p2p crypto exchange or cash
  - reisse 3y ago
    Nah, it's your take that is ill-informed. If you want to convert rubles to crypto, you just do P2P on the Binance or on any other exchange. Basically, exchange provides a list of verified merchants to whom you can deposit rubles directly via any kind of means (card-to-card, FPS, cash, you name it), and these merchants top up your crypto wallet. It takes like two minutes to buy USDT. And it also works in other direction. As for deposits, there was no reasonable way to deposit rubles on Binance anyway since VISA and Mastercard blocked international payments. Now it's just cleaning up the leftovers so Binance can legally say "we don't work with Russia anymore".
EB-Barrington 3y ago
Regular russians are being forced to accept the consequences of their fellow compatriots raping, murdering, killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure, and all-round generic war-criming, multiple times on a daily basis for almost two years now. Good.
CSMastermind 3y ago
> Many crypto observers have speculated that CommEX was just a new name for Binance, giving it a means for the exchange to continue operations in Russia without having issues with Western sanctions against the country. The skeptics have found significant evidence for such claims, including CommEX hiring prominent former Russia-related executives from Binance. So seems performative more than actually meaningful
lawlessone 3y ago
I wonder does this have anything to do with some of the recent crypto price rises? Could people buy crytpo and take out their deposit that way?
golergka 3y ago
A few things can be true at once. 1. Majority of Russian population supports the fascist regime and the invasion — about 70% IMO. These Russians are usually less educated, less wealthy, hold conservative values and have never been out of the country. They depend on the government for their livelihoods, by either working at state-owned companies or receiving money from the state in other forms. 2. There is a sizeable minority (30% IMO) of Russians who don't. During 2022, 30 thousand Russians have been imprisoned at anti-war protests, and up to a million left the country. These Russians are usually more educated, more middle-class, usually hold western socially progressive values and have been out of the country. They are usually employed in private business. These are exactly the people who have migrated out of Russia in 2022. 3. Sanctions against Russian government and military complex are morally good. They are effective at stopping the current war and deterring future invasions by Russia and other bad actors. They take power away from Putin and his fascist regime. 4. Sanctions against regular Russian citizens are morally bad. They stop Russians who flee and protest the war from moving to other countries and give more power to Putin and his fascist regime, and make it easier for it to wage war in Ukraine. 5. It is very hard to make effective sanctions that work like 3 but not like 4. But it's still worth trying. Any statement about "Russia" or "Russians" as a whole as if it was a singular subject is false by definition.
- Nasreddin_Hodja 3y ago
  > Sanctions against regular Russian citizens are morally bad. They stop Russians who flee and protest the war from moving to other countries and give more power to Putin and his fascist regime, and make it easier for it to wage war in Ukraine. It's not only bad morally but also increases their support for the war.
- telotortium 3y ago
  Sanctions have failed - the Ukraine counteroffensive this summer failed, and Ukraine's allies are running out of war materiel to give, especially given current threats in Israel and Taiwan, while Russia successfully scaled their manufacturing up. It's time to negotiate with Russia for peace before they decide to seize more of Ukraine's territory, and remove the sanctions in favor of a war indemnity against Russia to pay for the damage to Ukraine.
fwungy 3y ago
A little late and a little stupid, but current year, ok.

61 points by lxm 3y ago

Well, good thing you don't have to rely on centralized, government-controlled banks and currency exchanges to conduct business with people in the sanctioned countries and can use cryptocurrencies instead.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ChatGTP 3y ago
While that's true, it's quite impractical to just use cryptos alone for anything really useful. Maybe in time that will change but this will have some impact IMO.
smegsicle 3y ago
this is such an ill-informed take- binance is huge, there's nothing like it in russia with every exchange in the world refusing to work with rubles, the russian people are becoming completely cut off from crypto markets
- vore 3y ago
  Oh no!! What will they do??
  - meepmorp 3y ago
    Double down on invading their neighbors?
    - lionkor 3y ago
      Classy. FYI the population is not invading, the government and military is. You can go there and take a look, its not too hard to go and see that the people are normal people like anyone else. You can even talk to them.
      - justrealist 3y ago
        https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/russians-are-split-over-benefits-military-action-ukraine https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/rus... > At the same time, support for the Russian military action has neither increased nor decreased. Three in four Russians (76%) continue to say they support the military operation, with 43 percent expressing strong support and 33 percent somewhat supporting it. Apologies if I accidentally condemn the 24% of Russians who aren't neofascists (and yet, can't be bothered to protest, lest the state get upset).
        orphea 3y ago
        > and yet, can't be bothered to protest You go to prison for making anti-war statements in Russia, you know? https://meduza.io/en/news/2023/11/08/prosecution-requests-eight-year-sentence-for-sasha-skochilenko-st-petersburg-artist-who-replaced-price-tags-with-information-about-war-in-ukraine https://meduza.io/en/news/2023/11/08/prosecution-requests-ei... Eight. Fucking. Years. For some anti-war price tags. The same sentence you get if you plant drugs as a group of corrupted cops. https://meduza.io/en/news/2021/06/07/ex-police-officers-convicted-in-the-golunov-case-challenge-verdict https://meduza.io/en/news/2021/06/07/ex-police-officers-conv...
        justrealist 3y ago
        Yes, that is my point. Russian liberals are only anemically willing to be anti-war when that stance cannot personally hurt them, and certainly not opposed enough that they are willing to leave Russia. It may shock you to know that in some countries[1], dissidents have been willing to take personal risk of jail time to make their voice heard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela
        orphea 3y ago
        It may shock you to know that in some countries[1][2], dissidents have been willing to take personal risk of jail time to make their voice heard. Or being killed. [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Yashin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Yashin [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Nemtsov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Nemtsov
- Hoefner 3y ago
  Can't russians just use and deposit usd or any other currency instead?
  - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    Sure - if they have some bank that isn't sanctioned (AFAIK there are 0 domestic banks not sanctioned) - or money already outside of Russia (only the rich, and most of the mega rich are sanctioned individually).
    - flamey 3y ago
      you know wrong
    - pshirshov 3y ago
      Unfortunately no. Gazprombank, Raiffeisenbank and Rosselkhozbank are partially sanctioned but operational - they allow to do swift transfers, their own native transfers to select post-soviet countries and their unionpay cards work relatively well outside of russia.
  - victorbjorklund 3y ago
    And where will they convert their rubels to USD?
    - Hoefner 3y ago
      Probably lots of countries and people still doing business (and trading) in russia who needs RUB. So p2p crypto exchange or cash
- reisse 3y ago
  Nah, it's your take that is ill-informed. If you want to convert rubles to crypto, you just do P2P on the Binance or on any other exchange. Basically, exchange provides a list of verified merchants to whom you can deposit rubles directly via any kind of means (card-to-card, FPS, cash, you name it), and these merchants top up your crypto wallet. It takes like two minutes to buy USDT. And it also works in other direction. As for deposits, there was no reasonable way to deposit rubles on Binance anyway since VISA and Mastercard blocked international payments. Now it's just cleaning up the leftovers so Binance can legally say "we don't work with Russia anymore".

EB-Barrington 3y ago

Regular russians are being forced to accept the consequences of their fellow compatriots raping, murdering, killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure, and all-round generic war-criming, multiple times on a daily basis for almost two years now. Good.

CSMastermind 3y ago

> Many crypto observers have speculated that CommEX was just a new name for Binance, giving it a means for the exchange to continue operations in Russia without having issues with Western sanctions against the country. The skeptics have found significant evidence for such claims, including CommEX hiring prominent former Russia-related executives from Binance. So seems performative more than actually meaningful

lawlessone 3y ago

I wonder does this have anything to do with some of the recent crypto price rises? Could people buy crytpo and take out their deposit that way?

golergka 3y ago

A few things can be true at once. 1. Majority of Russian population supports the fascist regime and the invasion — about 70% IMO. These Russians are usually less educated, less wealthy, hold conservative values and have never been out of the country. They depend on the government for their livelihoods, by either working at state-owned companies or receiving money from the state in other forms. 2. There is a sizeable minority (30% IMO) of Russians who don't. During 2022, 30 thousand Russians have been imprisoned at anti-war protests, and up to a million left the country. These Russians are usually more educated, more middle-class, usually hold western socially progressive values and have been out of the country. They are usually employed in private business. These are exactly the people who have migrated out of Russia in 2022. 3. Sanctions against Russian government and military complex are morally good. They are effective at stopping the current war and deterring future invasions by Russia and other bad actors. They take power away from Putin and his fascist regime. 4. Sanctions against regular Russian citizens are morally bad. They stop Russians who flee and protest the war from moving to other countries and give more power to Putin and his fascist regime, and make it easier for it to wage war in Ukraine. 5. It is very hard to make effective sanctions that work like 3 but not like 4. But it's still worth trying. Any statement about "Russia" or "Russians" as a whole as if it was a singular subject is false by definition.

Nasreddin_Hodja 3y ago
> Sanctions against regular Russian citizens are morally bad. They stop Russians who flee and protest the war from moving to other countries and give more power to Putin and his fascist regime, and make it easier for it to wage war in Ukraine. It's not only bad morally but also increases their support for the war.
telotortium 3y ago
Sanctions have failed - the Ukraine counteroffensive this summer failed, and Ukraine's allies are running out of war materiel to give, especially given current threats in Israel and Taiwan, while Russia successfully scaled their manufacturing up. It's time to negotiate with Russia for peace before they decide to seize more of Ukraine's territory, and remove the sanctions in favor of a war indemnity against Russia to pay for the damage to Ukraine.

fwungy 3y ago

A little late and a little stupid, but current year, ok.