Russia's telecom regulator blacklists Binance website

The website of the Binance exchange is still available without additional access tools, platform says crypto funds are safe.

Authorities in Russia appear to be going after Binance - the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange - as its domain is now in the list of prohibited websites in the country.

On Sept. 24, Binance officially announced on its Russian Telegram channel that Russian telecom regulator Roskomnadzor has added the website to the register of platforms disseminating prohibited information.

According to the announcement, Binance has been placed in the list due to distribution of data related to the acquisition of digital currencies like Bitcoin.

Gleb Kostarev, Binance's head of operations for Russia and the CIS, told Cointelegraph that the exchange announced the news immediately after the exchange received a notification from Roskomnadzor.

Despite the domain being placed on the list of prohibited websites, Russians can still access it without any additional tools like a VPN. As of press time, the URL can be found on the official register of blacklisted sites of Roskomnadzor.

According to the data, the website was listed on June 2, 2020, while the access to the website "Is not limited."

As Binance's website was purportedly blacklisted by Roskomnadzor in June 2020, the action appears to be unrelated to Binance's plans to launch its crypto debit card in Russia since the plans for it were announced slightly later, in September 2020.

In late August, Roskomnadzor also blocked BestChange.

Ru, a major cryptocurrency website in Russia that provides an aggregator service of about 400 local crypto exchange websites.