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.
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.
The symbolism of Labour taking the West Midlands mayor, a jewel in the Tory crown, could be felt in the room as Labour activists gathered in Birmingham to celebrate the win with their new mayor Richard Parker and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.
There are moments on election journeys when the momentum shifts – and this win felt like one of them.
“We humbly asked [the voters] to put their trust and confidence in a changed Labour Party and they did. And that is a significant piece of political history that we’ve made here today,” said Sir Keir at his victory rally.
“So the message out of these elections, the last now the last stop before we go into that general election, is that the country wants change.
“I hope the prime minister is listening and gives the opportunity to the country to vote as a whole in a general election as soon as possible.”
This win gave them the boost that was missing when they won the Blackpool South by-election on a massive 26-point swing, but then failed to pick up the hundreds of council seats they were chasing.
More on Conservatives
Related Topics:
This win, on just 1,508 votes or 0.25 per cent of the vote, was a body blow for a Conservative party that believed they could just about cling on. Ben Houchen, the Tees Valley mayor, is now the last Tory standing.
For Labour, then a moment to bookmark.
Advertisement
Just as Boris Johnson’s Hartlepool by-election win in 2021 was a low point for Sir Keir – he told me this week that he considered resigning over the loss because he thought it showed he was the barrier to Labour’s recovery – this too will feel devastating not just for Andy Street but for the PM too.
Labour has beaten him in a street fight. He’s bloodied with Sir Keir now emboldened.
“This was the one result we really needed,” said one senior Labour figure. “It’s been our top focus for the past week and symbolically a very important win.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
3:32
Analysis of local election and mayoral results
And Labour needed the boost, because, as Professor Michael Thrasher pointed out in his Sky News’ national vote share projection calculated from the local election results, Sir Keir was not picking up the sort of vote share that Tony Blair was winning in the run-up to the 1997 Labour landslide.
His latest calculation of a 35% vote share for Labour and 26% for the Tories, put Sir Keir winning a general election but short of a majority.
What the West Midlands mayoral win did for Sir Keir was to give him a clear narrative that he is coming for the Tories and will do what he needs to take them down.
It raises inevitable questions about what is next for Rishi Sunak. The prime minister had nowhere to go today, not one win to celebrate. The worst performance in council elections in 40 years, was already pretty much as bad as it gets before the loss of Andy Street. The former Conservative mayor was magnanimous towards the prime minister, saying the loss was his alone.
But colleagues will not be so generous. One former cabinet minister said this loss was “devastating”. “We’re done and there’s no appetite to move against him,” said the senior MP. Many Tories tell me they are now resigned to defeat and believe Mr Sunak and his team needed to own it, rather than the rest of the party.
The coming days might be bumpy, the mood will be stony. But Tories tell me not much will actually change for them.
For Sir Keir, he now needs to sell not the changed Labour Party, but his vision for changing the country. The West Mids mayor’s win was dazzling, but it could have so easily gone the other way. And as Mr Sunak fights to survive, Labour still has to fight hard to win.
Boris Johnson has paid tribute to the villagers who Sky News revealed turned him away from a polling station when he tried to vote without a valid photo ID – under rules he introduced.
The former prime minister said he attempted to cast his ballot using a magazine sleeve with his name and address on as proof but was prevented from doing so.
The requirement to provide photo ID was introduced by Mr Johnson during his time in Downing Street as part of the Elections Act 2022.
The move was controversial over fears it would bar people from voting, particularly among disadvantaged groups.
Mr Johnson had been seeking to vote in South Oxfordshire, where a police and crime commissioner for Thames Valley was being elected.
Writing in his Daily Mail column, he said: “I want to pay a particular tribute to the three villagers who on Thursday rightly turned me away when I appeared in the polling station with nothing to prove my identity except the sleeve of my copy of Prospect magazine, on which my name and address had been printed.
“I showed it to them and they looked very dubious… within minutes I was back with my driving licence and voted Tory.”
Sky’s election coverage plan – how to follow
The weekend: Sophy Ridge will host another special edition of the Politics Hub on Saturday from 7pm until 9pm. And Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips will take a look back over what’s happened from 8.30am until 10am.
How do I watch?: Freeview 233, Sky 501, Virgin 603, BT 313, YouTube and the Sky News website and app. You can also watch Sky News live here, and on YouTube.
The Electoral Dysfunction podcast with Beth Rigby, Jess Phillips and Ruth Davidsonis out now, and Politics at Jack and Sam’s will navigate the big question of where the results leave us ahead of a general election on Sunday.
Thursday’s election is the first time many voters in England and Wales have had to present ID to vote under provisions first rolled out at last year’s local elections.
As well as driving licences, other acceptable forms of ID include passports, proof of age cards, blue badges, and some concessionary travel cards.
Follow Sky News on WhatsApp
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The government has also said it intends to make veterans’ ID cards a valid form of voter identification after former service personnel were turned away.
Veterans’ minister Johnny Mercer apologised to those who had been unable to use the document to vote, vowing to “do all I can” to have it added to the list of valid identification.
Labour said the government has had years to ensure the card was included, having begun rolling out the scheme in 2019.