CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, confirmed in the Bloomberg interview that Binance would impose and comply with sanctions that will restrict the financial activity of Russian individuals. Furthermore, he cited that an extension of these restrictions beyond the sanctioned individuals would be “unethical for us to do”.
“I just think it’s just not our decision to make to freeze user accounts,” Zhao said. Additionally, he stated that many Russian users are not in support of their country’s aggression towards Ukraine and that “the most vulnerable groups of people have little impact on international affairs.”
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When asked if the sanctioned Russian oligarchs could trade anonymously on Binance, Zhao assured that access to his entire exchange depends on identity verification. He also cited that he does not know how many accounts Binance has frozen to date, but their compliance team is in charge of taking required actions.
Aside Zhao, the CEO of Kraken has also shared a similar opinion on the issue. Jesse Powell has said that Kraken would not freeze user funds without any legal order to do so.
So far, Ukraine has also asked six other exchanges which include Huobi, ByBit, Gate.io, Kucoin, Kuna and Whitebit to block and restrict financial activity from Russian users.
