The situation changed in February 2022 after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine. In April 2022, Binance banned users from Russia with a deposit of more than 10 thousand euros from participating in trading, and in March 2023, they banned users from buying euros and dollars through its P2P service. EU citizens were banned from buying rubles using Binance's P2P service.
In March 2023, the U.S. canada whatsapp resource Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against Binance, accusing the exchange of violating cryptocurrency derivatives trading rules and U.S. law since at least 2019. In June 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Binance with violating securities laws.
In August 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that Binance did not rule out the possibility of completely ceasing operations in Russia. In September 2023, two Russian top managers of Binance, Gleb Kostarev and Vladimir Smerkis, who oversaw its development in Russia and the CIS, announced their departure from the company without giving reasons.
There is almost no available information about CommEX, which will receive Binance's Russian assets. It is known that the exchange's website was launched the day before the announcement of the deal - on Tuesday, September 26. According to the Who.is portal, the domain name commex.com was registered in November 2017, but was extended on September 22, 2023. The registration was made through the American anonymous domain service Domains By Proxy LLC from the state of Arizona.
In the Russian-language CommEX Telegram chat, a technical support employee reported that the company is registered in the Seychelles and will focus on the markets of Asian and CIS countries. At the same time, he assured users that residents of Crimea can register on the exchange. However, the official website of the exchange states that CommEX will not provide account registration or services to citizens of the following countries: USA, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Republic of Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Iran, Cuba, Syria, as well as North Korea and the Crimean region.
A Binance representative told ComNews that the company does not comment on the deal amount and declined to name the owners of the new CommEX exchange, citing a lack of data. "We have no information about CommEX employees. In terms of the deal, neither Binance nor its executives have any shares or participation in CommEX profits," a Binance representative told ComNews, emphasizing that the exchange did not reserve the right to buy back assets.
At the same time, he added that there will be an "organized and consistent migration of users" between the exchanges. "Binance, together with CommEX, will take all necessary measures to ensure that users are informed about the process of transferring their assets to the CommEX platform. We protect user data and personal information, including KYC information, by encrypting data in storage. Transferred data is protected by end-to-end encryption, ensuring that only the user has access to personal information," the Binance representative emphasized.
He added that Binance users do not necessarily have to switch to CommEX. "They can also withdraw funds to another platform if they wish. Users will receive communications from Binance and CommEX in the coming weeks and months on how to switch to CommEX if they wish to do so," the company representative added.
He also said that Russian citizens legally residing in other countries can continue to use the Binance platform, provided they comply with sanctions rules.