- Russian telecommunications services regulator recently blocked the crypto platform LocalBitcoins.
- The move supposedly comes due to the potential to use the platform for spreading illegal information.
- Despite the block, Russians are continuing to use the site through VPN apps.
Over the last few years, Russia has grown to become one of the crypto world’s most important markets. However, the country’s government cannot seem to decide how it feels regarding cryptocurrency, and its availability to Russian citizens. This led to a new decision to block P2P crypto exchange, LocalBitcoins.
Russia blocks popular P2P crypto platform
According to recent reports, Russia’s telecommunications services regulator, Roskomnadzor, just blocked the country’s citizens from accessing LocalBitcoins.
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Many are familiar with this platform as being one of the biggest sources of crypto traffic in Russia. Anyone trying to access the website right now will only run into a blank page, as the platform has been completely censored by the country’s regulator.
However, that did not stop Russians from using LocalBitcoins through VPN apps, which are capable of masking their location through connections to foreign servers.
In other words, despite this limitation, Russian crypto users have managed to remain active on LocalBitcoin. Customer ads on the website are still standing, as well.
Russians quickly found another way of accessing LocalBitcoins
Considering that Russians quickly started employing VPNs, and that the entire move did not slow down Russian crypto trading on the platform, it would appear that the country’s crypto community has been expecting this kind of move for quite some time. Users were simply already prepared for it, which is not surprising, considering that LocalBitcoins was blocked in Russia before.
Around four years ago, Roskomnadzor blocked LocalBitcoins for the first time. Now, it did it again, and according to Binance’s recent announcement, LocalBitcoins was not the only one who was censored in the country.
Binance itself seems to have been blocked, despite the fact that its website is not blacklisted by the government.
Russia did announce the move earlier this year, during the summer. It declared restrictions on accessing LocalBitcoins on July 21st, claiming that the website can be used for spreading illegal information.
The move came right at the time when Russia was working on changing its crypto laws, which made ownership of cryptocurrencies legal. The coin owners simply cannot use them as a means of payment.
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