Russia blocks access to Crypto Exchange OKX

Russia has blocked access to OKX – the world’s third-largest crypto exchange by volume – at the request of the prosecutor’s office on Tuesday.

A search for the exchange’s domain under records from Roskomnadzor, Russia’s internet censorship agency, shows the website was blocked in accordance with Article 15.3 of the Law of Russia on Information, Information Technology and Information Protection.

The article protects against, among other things, the spread of false information, threats against financial organisations, incitement to extremist activity. However, no specific reason has been given for the website ban at this time. OKX did not immediately respond Decryptits request for comment.

The local NGO Roskomsvoboda has also listed Okx.com among its register of blocked addresses. The organization, dedicated to monitoring online censorship, uses a name similar to Russia’s censorship agency, but replaces the last half with “svoboda” (which means “freedom” in Russian) as opposed to “nadzor” (which translates to “supervision”). .

OKX is not the first exchange to be targeted by Russia: Binance’s website was also blocked by a local court in June 2020, as originally reported by Binance’s regional head of Asia, Gleb Kostarev, in a Facebook posts. Back then, Binance claimed it had received no complaint from the government, nor had it been informed of the blacklist until three months after its implementation.

“The issuance and use of bitcoins is completely decentralized, and there is no way to regulate it by the authorities, which is contrary to the current Russian law,” the court argued at the time. Nevertheless, Binance managed to get the ruling lifted by January 2021.

Since then, Russian agencies have been working quickly to figure out crypto’s place within the current regulatory framework. The Bank of Russia and the Ministry of Finance disagreed for some time on whether or not crypto should be completely banned from the country.

In recent months, they have managed to find a compromise. On the one hand, the State Duma and President Vladimir Putin passed a law prohibition cryptocurrencies as means of payment in July. On the other hand, the nation’s government has expressed openness to using crypto for international trade — especially as a tool to bypass Western sanctions.

In compliance with EU sanctions, Binance was forced to do so limit services to Russian citizens in April.