Binance is the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform, it has been continuing to serve the traders in Iran despite the sanctions imposed by the U.S.
In 2018, the United States of America reimposed the restrictions on Iran after Iran made a deal with major nuclear-powered nations. This included Binance. Later, Binance informed all its users in Iran to liquidate their digital assets as fast as possible because the services will discontinue real soon.
According to the latest reports and interviews by Reuters, it has been found that many traders in Iran were still trading freely on Binance. Iranian traders in their interviews confessed that they were freely using Binance despite the U.S Sanctions in 2018, as the platform only required an email address to be accessed and no other identity verification. This continued till September 2021 that is when Binance tightened its access procedure.
Binance has haven’t replied to the questions raised by Reuters. However, few lawyers claim that Binance does not have a specific headquarters and the veil of developers always stays untouched. In such a case, Binance cannot be said as an American company thereby there’s no need for Binance to abide by the rules of the US government. Binance US is a different entity that operates within the US and only in the US and this needs to abide by the laws of the country.
According to Reuters, the head officials of Binance already knew about the popularity of Binance in Iran after the sanctions. The reports included leaked messages of Binance executives who well knew about the situation in Iran, and Binance’s rise in popularity instead they made jokes stating ‘these Iranian Boys’.
Reuters have confirmed over 11 Iranian traders were easily using Binance even after 2018 sanctions till September, 21. Iranian traders confessed that Binance was easily accessible as it didn’t require identity verification.
Some of the interviews in the reports included:
There are many alternatives but none of them is as good as Binance, it didn’t need identity verification so we all used it – Asal Alizade
Pooria Fotoohi said that Binance is very popular in Iran because of its super easy interface and know-your-customer tools. They succeeded in gaining a huge tracing volume, with many pairs of currencies within a short period of time.
Accordingly, Reuters revealed Iranian Telegram pages that were operating in Iran and helping the other traders to trade in Binance. Other than this Binance gained a maximum number of followers on Instagram from Tehran followed by New York and Istanbul. This summed up the popularity of Binance in Iran.
According to the reports, Binance has included Iran as one of the sanctioned nations in their files where they are not supposed to operate. In November 2018, Binance sent an email to all its users in Iran as a warning to withdraw all their cryptocurrency assets before the services discontinue in their area. Other than this, Binance added the name of Iran to the list of ‘HARD SANCTIONED NATIONS’ which included Cuba, North Korea, Syria, and Crimea other than Iran.
Even when there were hard restrictions on the use of Binance in Iran, there was still a hike in the usage of Binance in Iran which was known by the head executives of Binance but they chose to remain silent. This continued till last September, after which Binance hardened its verification process.
Above all this, Binance also posted ‘how to use VPN for Binance’ on their social media handle and even on their website, this drew attention. In the post, Binance clearly said ‘how to use Binance even when it is restricted in your area’ this is a matter of conflict as to why Binance is allowing or promoting the use of Binance knowing it’s illegal to use Binance in restricted areas. People are pointing out Binance on the fact that they are promoting the use of VPN only to increase their trading volumes and targeting the areas that are illegal to operate. The CEO of Binance Changpang Zhao also promoted the use of VPN for Binance on his Twitter account but later deleted the tweet.
Binance is one of the most popular exchange platforms, and the largest exchange platform in terms of trading volume has drawn the attention of the world, and the debate is ongoing on whether or not Binance and its officials willingly allowed the use of Binance in Iran.
