OKX and Bybit Removing Sanctioned Russian Banks From P2P Transactions
Following the largest crypto exchange Binance, crypto exchanges OKX and Bybit have also removed sanctioned Russian banks as payment methods from their P2P marketplace. P2P trading is a great feature that users get in the crypto exchange.
You can buy crypto with fiat and sell crypto to get fiat currency in your bank account. Frankly speaking, it is very easy and convenient to use the P2P marketplace to make any transactions. If anything is imposed by regulators, centralized crypto exchanges have to comply with that. No company wants to get into any trouble while running their business.
It started with The Wall Street Journal report about allowing sanctioned Russian banks as payment methods in Binance's P2P marketplace. Even though Binance removed those sanctioned banks before, users kept doing transactions using yellow and green codewords. Binance was criticized for this.
Paying attention to this situation, Binance removed sanctioned Russian banks quickly from its platform. Now OKX and Bybit did the same thing by removing Tinkoff Bank and Sberbank from P2P transactions. Users can make P2P transactions in Raiffeisen Bank and the Russian Standard Bank. These two banks are not included in the sanction list.
The concerning part is that centralized cryptocurrency exchanges have to follow whatever comes from regulatory agencies. They do not have the choice to do something if they want to avoid regulatory scrutiny. Crypto exchanges are under pressure and they find a way to settle issues to keep running their businesses smoothly.
We are talking about decentralization in crypto. You may find most crypto projects are centralized in some ways. In order to survive and resist any pressure from the central authority, crypto projects have to be more decentralized. Otherwise, they do not have any option except to follow whatever comes from regulators.
OKX and Bybit did not make any announcements about removing sanctioned Russian banks Tinkoff Bank and Sberbank from their platforms. You may not find these banks as payment methods over there. Did users stop using these banks in P2P trading?
Users still try to find a way to use these banks to make P2P transactions. They may add other banks to the payment methods. But you could find in the terms and conditions that they will only accept payment from specific banks. It can happen in the P2P marketplace even after removing payment methods.
People prefer to do P2P trading to on-ramp and off-ramp crypto especially where crypto falls into a gray area. If crypto is legal and allowed in your country, that is great. But there are some countries where you will face way more restrictions to get involved in crypto.
People will feel how important it is to have decentralized P2P marketplaces where you may not face any restrictions. The central authority will take more actions to establish some sort of control over crypto. The good thing is that they will fail to do so in any crypto that is really decentralized. It will be a test and we will see which crypto project holds decentralization in practice.
