According to an official statement, the decision to exit the market led to the sale of the business to the CommEX crypto exchange. Starting from January 31 at 3:00 Moscow time, Binance P2P will no longer be accessible for Russian citizens and residents, hindering their ability to trade.
However, Russian citizens who reside outside of Russia and can prove their residency address will still be able to access and use Binance P2P without any changes. Binance has also clarified that they will stop supporting the Russian ruble (RUB) on their platform at the same time.
Meanwhile, Russian users will be able to withdraw their rubles through Binance’s fiat partners until January 31, and they can also utilize the “Conversion” tool to convert rubles into cryptocurrency.
This move comes after Binance announced in November that they would be departing from the Russian market and selling their business to the partner trading platform CommEX. Since then, they have been gradually notifying Russian clients about the need to close their accounts and withdraw their funds from the platform.
According to a well-known crypto-journalist, Wu Blockchain, the share of traffic from the Russian Federation on major cryptocurrency exchanges reached a significant 19% in December 2023. Russians showed a strong presence on platforms like Bybit, MEXC, and HTX, with Bybit receiving the highest monthly share of visitors from Russia at 19% of the total, followed by MEXC at 12%, and HTX at 11%.