Binance successor in Russia: Everything you need to know about CommEx, so far
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has claimed that it will fully quit Russia by selling its local business to a completely new exchange known as CommEx. While promising its customers a “smooth” migration, Binance hasn’t provided much information about its successor in Russia.
At the time of the announcement, little is known about CommEx’s founders or background. The exchange was launched on Sept. 26, 2023, just one day before Binance announced the sale of its business to the newly created exchange for an undisclosed amount.
A spokesperson for CommEx didn’t respond to multiple questions from users about the company’s owners or executives in the official Telegram group. The person claimed that CommEx is registered in the Seychelles and will serve its customers as a global exchange focused on two main regions: the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Asia.
CommEx already on Binance-owned CoinMarketCap
At launch, CommEx supports only a browser version, with the firm promising to introduce a mobile app in the near future. Despite being launched just one day ago, CommEx is already listed on CoinMarketCap, a major crypto tracking website that Binance acquired in April 2020. On the other hand, rival market tracker CoinGecko doesn’t include any information about CommEx at the time of writing.
According to CoinMarketCap data, CommEx lists 25 trading pairs at launch, including stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and Binance’s BNB (BNB) cryptocurrency. “CommEx is a rapidly expanding cryptocurrency exchange, backed by top-tier crypto VCs,” the description of the new exchange on CoinMarketCap reads.
CommEx will initially support peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions in Russia, allowing users to exchange their crypto without using the platform’s fiat channels. The platform will launch spot trading of USDT against Russia’s fiat currency, the ruble, once fiat channels are live, according to a spokesperson in CommEx’s Telegram group.
A spokesperson for Binance told Cointelegraph that it would be “entirely optional” for Binance users to move over to CommEx. “You may also withdraw your funds to another platform if you’d like,” the person noted, adding that users would still be able to migrate their assets to CommEx. The spokesperson added:
“Russia KYC’d new users registration will immediately be redirected to CommEX. Then, over the next several months, Binance will sunset all exchange services and business lines in Russia.”
According to the CommEx representative, users can trade without completing Know Your Customer (KYC) checks for up to 2 Bitcoin (BTC) in withdrawals. The firm will not allow account registration or services in locations including the United States, Belgium, the Republic of Cyprus, Czechia, the Netherlands and Singapore, as well as sanctioned regions like Iran and Crimea, CommEx’s location restrictions page reads.
The spokesperson also said it’s unlikely that Binance’s contactless payment tool, Binance Pay, will continue to work with CommEx.
Users question CommEx ownership
Binance’s announcement has triggered some speculation in the local crypto community regarding the owners of Binance’s successor in Russia. Some users have found similarities in the layouts of Binance and CommEx’s websites, while others said that CommEx was a “full copy” of Binance’s website.
“They just changed the logo and colors but essentially it’s the same website. I wouldn’t be surprised if Russian tops who left banana [Binance] would be managing directors here,” one commenter wrote in a now-deleted comment on CommEx’s Telegram group.
Among the similarities are significant resemblances between Binance and CommEx’s privacy notices and other website pages like terms of use. For example, CommEx’s privacy notice essentially provides a reworded copy of Binance’s privacy notice, closely following its structure and many formulations.
Russia has been one of Binance’s biggest markets, and the country is listed as the top market in terms of user visits for the website Binance.com, accounting for 6.9% of total visits at the time of writing, according to data from SimilarWeb.
“I don’t think that CZ [Changpeng Zhao] is ready to abandon such a huge pie like Russia and leave just like that,” one local cryptocurrency observer told Cointelegraph. Some people in the community have drawn parallels between CommEx in Russia and Binance’s affiliate in the United States, Binance.US, which claims to operate “independently” of Binance.
“It looks like some sort of Binance.US but just without the word ‘Binance’ in its name,” another local crypto enthusiast told Cointelegraph.
Related: Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao ask court to dismiss SEC suit
A spokesperson for Binance declined to comment on whether the company is aware of CommEx’s founders or executives. CommEx’s spokesperson declined to comment immediately, stating that the firm is focused on “platform optimization and stability,” as the CommEx website briefly went down amid Russian users rushing to the website after Binance made the announcement. CommEx’s Russian Telegram group, which had just about 50 members before the announcement, now counts nearly 2,000 users.
“With this sale, Binance fully exits Russia. We have no plans to get back,” a spokesperson for Binance told Cointelegraph.
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There is “no doubt” the UK “will spend 3% of our GDP on defence” in the next parliament, the defence secretary has said.
John Healey’s comments come ahead of the publication of the government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) on Monday.
This is an assessment of the state of the armed forces, the threats facing the UK, and the military transformation required to meet them.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously set out a “clear ambition” to raise defence spending to 3% in the next parliament “subject to economic and fiscal conditions”.
Mr Healey has now told The Times newspaper there is a “certain decade of rising defence spending” to come, adding that this commitment “allows us to plan for the long term. It allows us to deal with the pressures.”
A government source insisted the defence secretary was “expressing an opinion, which is that he has full confidence that the government will be able to deliver on its ambition”, rather than making a new commitment.
The UK currently spends 2.3% of GDP on defence, with Sir Keir announcing plans to increase that to 2.5% by 2027 in February.
This followed mounting pressure from the White House for European nations to do more to take on responsibility for their own security and the defence of Ukraine.
The 2.3% to 2.5% increase is being paid for by controversial cuts to the international aid budget, but there are big questions over where the funding for a 3% rise would be found, given the tight state of government finances.
While a commitment will help underpin the planning assumptions made in the SDR, there is of course no guarantee a Labour government would still be in power during the next parliament to have to fulfil that pledge.
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From March: How will the UK scale up defence?
A statement from the Ministry of Defence makes it clear that the official government position has not changed in line with the defence secretary’s comments.
The statement reads: “This government has announced the largest sustained increase to defence spending since the end of the Cold War – 2.5% by 2027 and 3% in the next parliament when fiscal and economic conditions allow, including an extra £5bn this financial year.
“The SDR will rightly set the vision for how that uplift will be spent, including new capabilities to put us at the leading edge of innovation in NATO, investment in our people and making defence an engine for growth across the UK – making Britain more secure at home and strong abroad.”
Sir Keir commissioned the review shortly after taking office in July 2024. It is being led by Lord Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary and NATO secretary general.
The Ministry of Defence has already trailed a number of announcements as part of the review, including plans for a new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command and a £1bn battlefield system known as the Digital Targeting Web, which we’re told will “better connect armed forces weapons systems and allow battlefield decisions for targeting enemy threats to be made and executed faster”.
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PM Sir Keir Starmer and Defence Secretary John Healey on a nuclear submarine earlier this year. Pic: Crown Copyright 2025
On Saturday, the defence secretary announced a £1.5bn investment to tackle damp, mould and make other improvements to poor quality military housing in a bid to improve recruitment and retention.
Mr Healey pledged to “turn round what has been a national scandal for decades”, with 8,000 military family homes currently unfit for habitation.
He said: “The Strategic Defence Review, in the broad, will recognise that the fact that the world is changing, threats are increasing.
“In this new era of threat, we need a new era for defence and so the Strategic Defence Review will be the vision and direction for the way that we’ve got to strengthen our armed forces to make us more secure at home, stronger abroad, but also learn the lessons from Ukraine as well.
“So an armed forces that can be more capable of innovation more quickly, stronger to deter the threats that we face and always with people at the heart of our forces… which is why the housing commitments that we make through this strategic defence review are so important for the future.”
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