Binance Crypto Exchange Illegally Served Iranian Residents for 2 Years

Residents of Iran said that they used the Binance crypto exchange to conduct cryptocurrency transactions despite the sanctions imposed on them, which prohibited Binance from serving them.

According to the Reuters news agency, 7 Iranian residents (there were probably more such users, but only the above-mentioned persons agreed to talk to journalists) said that they had circumvented the ban on the use of the Binance crypto exchange and used the platform’s services until September 2021. Thus, in 2018, the United States reimposed sanctions (which had been suspended three years earlier as part of Iran’s nuclear deal with major world powers). In accordance with the requirements of the sanctions, in 2018, Binance notified Iranian users that it would no longer serve them. In turn, Iranian residents had to delete their accounts.

However, traders continued to use the crypto exchange because only an email was required for authentication: «Binance didn’t require proof of identity, so we used it to our advantage.»

According to the journalists, the platform’s representatives were aware of the «growing number of Iranian users despite the ban» but did not prevent it. At the time of writing, Binance has not provided any official comment on the matter. However, lawyers are convinced that cryptocurrency trading by Iranians on Binance «may be of interest to US regulators.»

As a reminder, the SEC has been investigating whether Binance Holdings violated the rules established for securities when it launched its BNB token as part of an initial coin offering (ICO) five years ago. Also recently, Philippine analysts have called on the Department of Trade and Industry of the Philippines (DTI) to ban the cryptocurrency exchange Binance — analysts claim that Binance has been providing cryptocurrency services to Filipinos for several years without a license that would legally allow such activities.