Authorities in Belarus have begun targeting several global crypto exchanges, making them unavailable in the country. The decision was undertaken to prevent residents in Belarus from using their services.
The order came from the Ministry of Information, as revealed by local and regional media. The websites of several top crypto trading platforms have been added to a list of restricted internet resources in Belarus. The list is maintained by BelGIE, a government body that serves as the country’s watchdog, overseeing the telecommunications sector.
Belarus blocks access to top crypto exchanges
The measure is affecting some of the most popular exchanges in the global crypto space, including Bybit, Bitget, and OKX, the Onliner.by outlet informed, quoted by the Russian business news portal RBC. According to Sputnik Belarus, their sites were blacklisted on Wednesday, December 10, without providing any specific reasons for the move.
However, the entries in the state-run database reveal that access has been blocked “based on the decision of the Ministry of Information.” Attempts to reach Bybit through the national internet provider Beltelecom returned a message indicating that the restrictions are in accordance with the Belarusian Law “On Mass Media.” Some users are suggesting using a VPN, which is currently the only option, but Onliner warns against it.
The platform claimed that it could potentially result in the blocking of accounts by the exchanges themselves, as they are capable of detecting login attempts from banned jurisdictions or hidden IP addresses. RBC later noticed that some of the targeted exchanges, like the blacklisted Bitget and OKX, as well as Kucoin and MEXC, became temporarily accessible.
Officials call for caution amid rise in illicit activities
The Russian news outlet also highlighted that other major digital-asset platforms, most notably Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, and KuCoin, are not on the list at all. Amid a growing volume of cryptocurrency transactions, the government in Minsk has been taking steps to update crypto rules in Belarus, a leader in the post-Soviet space in terms of regulations.
Belarus was one of the first countries in Eastern Europe to introduce a regulatory framework for what it broadly calls “digital tokens.” It did it with a presidential decree on the development of the digital economy, which went into force in 2018. Since then, both the regulated and unregulated crypto markets in the country have been expanding, and in September, President Alexander Lukashenko urged officials and government institutions to catch up with the industry.
However, Minsk has been attacking the use of cryptocurrencies for illicit purposes. At the end of November, the head of the country’s state auditing body announced the establishment of a register for wallets used in criminal activities, as reported by Cryptopolitan. The database has been set up as part of a mechanism for the seizure of such digital funds.
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