Binance has announced that it now provides a way to buy cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, and XRP) with Russian ruble (RUB).
This support for the Russian ruble comes just nine days after BINANCE Co-Founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (aka "CZ") visited Moscow and met around 700 Binance fans at a Binance meetup.
During an interview with Coindesk at this event, CZ said that he is planning to open an office in the Russian capital due to the depth of IT talent in the country:
There is a very strong programmer talent [here]. On this trip, it is very clear to me that we should look into the developers’ office, not the commercial office, not just yet.
He also mentioned he wanted to bring the Venus project to Russia:
We are also working with other potential stablecoin issuers pegged to fiat currencies. In every location we’re doing that, in Russia specifically, we’re looking for those partners as well.
CZ also said that Binance was having discussions with Russian banks, but since cryptocurrency does not yet have a clear legal status in Russia, Binance would probably need to find another way to provide a fiat gateway for the ruble, and that Binance was hoping to launch this service by early November:
We’re basically doing what other exchanges are doing here, in Russia. We are discussing with banks, but it’s not official yet. The banks are at a very early stage. Payment services will probably come up first.
Well, yesterday (October 30), Binance announced that it has enabled RUB deposits and withdrawals via Advanced Cash, a payment platform powered by Gibraltar-based ADV Project Ltd that claims to be "faster than conventional money transfers, cheaper than a regular bank account, and easier to use than other e-currency systems."
Binance users can deposit RUB to the Binance Cash Wallet and then use this to buy Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and XRP. It should be noted that:
- Making a deposit/withdrawal via a bank card is possible provided that the card has been issued by a Russian bank. (Advanced Cash charges 3% for a deposit and 2.5% + 50 RUB for a withdrawal).
- In the case of deposits/withdrawals via Advanced Cash's e-wallet, there is no fee.
In other Binance news, the exchange made two interesting announcements on Thursday (October 31):
- It now supports margin trading for Qtum (QTUM). This means that (1) QTUM is now both a margin asset and a borrowable asset; and (2) two margin pairs -- QTUM/BTC and QTUM/USDT -- have been added.
- The recently updated Binance app for Android now supports futures trading.
Featured Image Courtesy of Binance
