The Russia-based crypto website BestChange is accessible once again. The website aggregates exchange information and may have been blocked for violating a law on advertising passed last year.
The BestChange website was blocked on Feb. 10 without warning and added to the list of banned websites maintained by Roskomnadzor, the federal communications authority. It was unblocked on Feb. 20.
Listing exchange data could violate the law on advertising
A spokesperson for BestChange told Reuters that the organization did not know the reason for its blockage. Lawyers for the organization were in contact with the Russian central bank and Roskomnadzor, they were not informed of the reason for the blockage nor that the website would be unblocked, RBC reported.
Internet provider Megafon had posted a notice saying the website was blocked under the federal law “On the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Bank of Russia).”
According to Similarweb.com, there are at least a few websites currently in operation that provide analogical services in Russia.
Observers suspected that the website was violating amendments to the law on advertising that were passed in August. The amended law prohibited the advertising of cryptocurrencies and services related to cryptocurrency.
Crypto exchanges are caught in a web of changing legislation
The website was blocked by Roskomnadzor in 2017, 2019 and 2020. In those instances, the blockage was due to the prohibition on the use of Bitcoin.
BestChange lists exchanges and compares the rates each offers for exchanges with cryptocurrency, fiat, electronic money, and other financial instruments. It can send notifications when exchange rates reach pre-chosen point and carry out “double-exchanges” using an intermediate vehicle instrument when direct exchanges are not possible.
BestChange continued to operate while its website was blocked, presumably because its mirror website, hosted outside the Russian Federation, remained accessible.
Russia has legalized and begun taxing crypto mining, where the local power supply allows it, and it is allowing the use of cryptocurrency for international transactions, intending to evade sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union.
There have also reportedly been discussions of establishing cryptocurrency exchange programs at the Moscow Exchange and St. Petersburg Currency Exchange. Russian President Vladimir Putin declared cryptocurrency a form of property in December. Nonetheless, the central bank has since cracked down on over-the-counter crypto trading.
Despite those measures, Chainalysis ranked Russia seventh in its cryptocurrency adoption in 2024.
