Binance which is the largest crypto exchange in the world announced on Tuesday that it will stop accepting cards issued by Mastercard and Visa in Russia. This will take effect starting Wednesday.
The move, announced on the Binance website after the world's largest card operator said it would stop services in Russia as part of sanctions against Moscow, over the country's aggression on Ukraine. American Express also stopped its Russian operations last week.
Russia is currently being squeezed by a series of sanctions from various major economies including the United States (U.S.) which is blocking some major banks from the SWIFT payment network and freezing their foreign holdings. Sberbank, Russia's largest lender, has closed its European operations in a series of cases.
Commenting on the move, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as “CZ”, said the decision was beyond their jurisdiction. Binance, like most major crypto exchanges has refused to completely ban Russian consumers. However, major crypto exchanges have agreed to comply with U.S. restrictions.
Coinbase recently blocked 25,000 Russian wallets allegedly seen to be involved in illegal activity. On the other hand, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell is of the opinion that Kraken will not oppress Russian consumers unless required by law.
The U.S. government has recently been seen to be increasingly aggressive in imposing sanctions and now crypto is also included in the list of sanctions against Russia. Not only that, crypto exchange exchanges are also warned not to get involved with blacklisted individuals.
