In a bid to maintain compliance with global regulatory standards, Binance, a prominent cryptocurrency exchange, has recently revised its peer-to-peer service’s payment options. The changes were made in response to criticism regarding the use of color-coded terms to represent sanctioned Russian banks in its system. This update was confirmed by Cointelegraph on the 25th of August.
A Closer Look at Binance’s P2P Service
The peer-to-peer service provided by Binance is essentially a message board where users can propose to buy or sell cryptocurrencies. It also acts as a cryptocurrency escrow service. Unlike the main Binance exchange platform, this P2P service leaves the handling of fiat payments up to the users, thereby ensuring that no fiat money passes through Binance’s servers.
Controversy over Sanctioned Russian Banks
On the 22nd of August, The Wall Street Journal reported that Binance had included sanctioned Russian banks such as Tinkoff and Rosbank in its list of transfer methods. This sparked criticism, with accusations that Binance was potentially breaching sanctions by endorsing these banks as payment options. In response, Binance removed these banks from its payment methods list, as reported by various Russian news outlets on the 24th of August.
However, it was discovered that these banks had re-emerged under the coded terms ‘yellow’ and ‘green’, where ‘yellow’ represented Tinkoff and ‘green’ represented Rosbank. Following this revelation, these code words were also removed from the list of payment methods on the 25th of August.
Current Status of Payment Options
Currently, 16 payment methods are still available for Russian ruble to crypto conversions. These include Raiffeisenbank, Russian Standard Bank, Payeer, Adv Cash, among others. However, neither Tinkoff nor Rosbank, nor their color-coded equivalents, feature on the list anymore.
Despite their official removal, it was found that some Binance P2P users are still advertising sales with ‘the green bank’ as their payment method. These users typically list other payment methods in the ‘payment method’ field but state explicitly within the ‘advertiser’s terms’ that they will only accept transfers using ‘the green bank’.
Peer-to-peer crypto marketplaces have always been a subject of controversy. While some argue that these marketplaces are necessary to prevent government payment censorship, others believe they are used by criminals to transfer illicit funds.
For those interested in staying updated with the changing landscape of cryptocurrency exchanges and their regulatory compliance, platforms like cryptoview.io offer a comprehensive overview of the market.
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