On October 12, 2024, at 16:49, the support service of the centralized crypto exchange Gate.io sent a mailing to Russian clients with the following content:
"Important reminder regarding your Gate Global account.
Dear user,
As part of our ongoing commitment to regulatory compliance and in accordance with our current policy, we conduct a thorough review of all accounts to ensure their compliance with changing regulatory requirements.
Gate Global UAB ("Gate Lithuania") has consistently applied a policy of restricting access to residents or citizens of certain jurisdictions, including Russia. Gate Lithuania has now decided to terminate any agreements with all users of Russian citizenship (including closing their accounts) in order to comply with legal and regulatory requirements. Accordingly, the following measures will be implemented:
Russian citizens or individuals residing in Russia will no longer be able to register an account on our platform, regardless of their country of residence. On October 12, 2024, at 20:00 UTC, all accounts of existing users who are Russian citizens will be closed. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your continued support.
If you have any questions regarding the above agreement, please do not hesitate to contact our support team at [email protected]."
In connection with the above, please pay attention to the following points:
- The message was made at four o'clock on Saturday. That is, Russians were given four hours to withdraw funds before the account was closed. Why such a rush? Obviously, almost no one will have time to withdraw money during this time. I think it's simple - the temptation to pocket the money of dear Russians is great.
- Until today, Russian citizens have been slowly but steadily weaned off American and European centralized crypto exchanges. Chinese and other offshore exchanges did not include repression mechanisms. On the contrary, they lured people to themselves, apparently believing that the American authorities would not put pressure on them. Alas, their turn has come. So, those who fled from Binance to Bybit, MexxC, BingX, Kukoin - ku, ku! Get ready! Soon Russians will be thrown out of all remaining centralized exchanges.
- For those who haven't understood yet, I'll explain again, jumping between centralized exchanges is useless. A refuge for cryptocurrencies, and not only Russian ones, is on blockchains, where there are modern, fast, fully functional decentralized exchanges. No one will get you there and close your account. And the sooner you understand this, the fewer problems and financial losses there will be. Blockchain was created by crypto anarchists in order to not depend on the authorities.