Binance Russia: What Happened, and Where to Trade Now
When Binance Russia, the localized version of the world’s largest crypto exchange serving Russian users. Also known as Binance.ru, it was once the go-to platform for millions of Russians trading Bitcoin, Ethereum, and stablecoins to beat inflation and bypass banking limits. That all changed in 2022. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global sanctions and pressure from Russian regulators forced Binance to shut down its local operations. The platform stopped accepting new Russian users, froze accounts, and redirected traffic away from its Russian domain. No official announcement ever came—just silence. For users, it meant sudden loss of access, frozen funds, and no clear path forward.
But Binance Russia wasn’t the only player. The real story is about what happened next. Russian crypto regulation, a shifting legal landscape that banned foreign exchanges but allowed domestic platforms under strict oversight forced a split: users either moved to local exchanges like Kuna, a Ukraine-based platform that still served Russian speakers with minimal KYC, or turned to peer-to-peer (P2P) markets on Binance Global, Huobi, and OKX. Many now use stablecoins, especially USDT and USDC, to preserve value and move money across borders without banks—a workaround that’s become essential. The Russian government tried to ban crypto entirely, but with inflation hitting 20% and the ruble unstable, people kept trading anyway.
Today, there’s no official Binance Russia. No app. No website. No customer support. What you’ll find in the posts below are real stories from users who lost access, guides on how to recover funds through P2P, reviews of the few remaining legal options for Russian traders, and deep dives into how crypto adoption in Russia evolved after the shutdown. You’ll also see how other countries like India and Thailand cracked down on exchanges—and what lessons Russian users learned the hard way. This isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about survival. If you’re still trading crypto in Russia—or planning to—you need to know what’s real, what’s risky, and where the money actually flows now.
