By Nermeen Nabil Khear 
Russia’s internet watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has blocked the website of the leading exchange data aggregator in the Russian crypto assets market, BestChange.
The restrictive measures have affected several of its domains; the platform announced while assuring users its team is working to quickly restore access to its services.
Russian telecom regulator restricts BestChange.ru website
Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) has again blocked BestChange, the most popular aggregator of crypto exchange information in the Russian-speaking segment of the market.
Besides its main domain, BestChange.ru, two other mirror sites, BestChange.com and BestChange.net, have been restricted in the Russian Federation as well, the platform’s operators announced in a post on Telegram shortly before Easter.
They promised to promptly restore full services, highlighting that the BestChange.pro mirror domain is still accessible. Customers can also use an extension developed for the browsers Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Yandex Browser, Opera, and Microsoft Edge.
The extension provides access to BestChange’s main monitoring tools, allowing users to receive offers and find a suitable trading platform. It activates automatically whenever the BestChange website is down, the announcement explained.
“Lawyers are already working on unblocking the website…monitoring continues,” BestChange informed subscribers in its Telegram channel.
BestChange continues long battle to stay online in Russia
The Russian crypto exchange aggregator is not dealing with a situation like the current one for the first time. It was blocked earlier this year after Roskomnadzor added it to its list of banned websites on Feb. 10 without any prior warning or explanation beyond a short note stating: “information distributed in violation of the law.”
Possible reasons for the watchdog’s decision include presumed violations of the law “On the Central Bank of the Russian Federation” or recently adopted amendments to advertising legislation. In August last year, the latter banned the advertising of cryptocurrencies and crypto-related services. Access to the website was restored on Feb. 20.
Roskomnadzor’s latest move marks the fifth attempt to take down the service, which is quite popular in Russia and other countries in the post-Soviet space where Russian is spoken. The aggregator allows users to compare crypto rates on different trading platforms and choose between various available payment options.
The service was first blocked in 2017, then two years later, in 2019, and again in 2020, the Russian crypto news outlet Bits.media recalled in a post. According to its report, before the first stoppage this year, the Central Bank of Russia had contacted the Prosecutor General’s Office, which has been empowered to block websites at its own discretion since the end of 2021.
In February, representatives of BestChange suggested that the Russian authorities might have acted in the interest of unidentified competitors. The team said it had noticed an unusual number of materials online spreading false information about the leading aggregator while advertising alternative platforms.
With crypto-related activities, besides mining, yet to be legalized in Russia, other websites posting information about Bitcoin have also been targeted. Among them is Bits.media, a leading Russian source for crypto news. On the order of an unspecified government agency, Internet providers started blocking its website for Russian readers on Feb. 17.
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This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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