• KuCoin is the third major crypto exchange to announce regional restrictions within two weeks.
• Russia generated an estimated 1.03 million KuCoin website visits in September, 3.93% of global traffic.
• Russia's traffic share implies roughly 1.77 million affected registrations among KuCoin's 45 million users.
KuCoin Ends Service in Russia and Belarus
KuCoin has cut off service to customers in Russia and Belarus with immediate effect, becoming the third major crypto exchange to pull back from the region inside two weeks. The company's own discontinuation notice states the decision took effect at once and spans every product the platform offers, from spot markets to its crypto futures desk.
Affected customers will receive individual deadlines to close open positions and withdraw balances, so the wind-down will run account by account rather than through a single cut-off date.
The exchange cited “applicable legal and regulatory requirements” as its justification, without naming a specific rule, regulator or jurisdiction.
What KuCoin did not publish is any country-level account count, and it has not said how balances will be treated once the individual deadlines pass. Web-traffic measurement fills part of that gap: third-party data estimates Russia generated 1.03 million visits to KuCoin's website in September, 3.93% of the global total, ranking Russia as the platform's third-largest traffic source. September predates the announcement, so it stands as the best public proxy for the affected base.
KuCoin says it serves more than 45 million users worldwide; applying Russia's traffic share to that base suggests roughly 1.77 million Russian registrations could be caught by the shutdown. The number is an illustration, not a verified headcount. Visits do not equal unique people, mobile-app usage is excluded from the measurement, and many registered accounts sit dormant. Belarus adds an unknown quantity on top, and the population actually receiving closure notices may end up considerably smaller.
For users in both countries the instruction is narrow: watch for the individual deadline, close positions inside it, and move funds to a wallet where they hold the private key.
The Sanctions Trail Behind the Exit
The trail behind the decision starts in Brussels. On July 23, the European Union adopted its 21st sanctions package against Russia, a measure that targeted Russian energy and financial services alongside crypto and banned transactions with 14 foreign crypto platforms. It also created powers to restrict other overseas providers used to evade the measures.
Weeks later, KuCoin began blocking direct and indirect transactions involving A7-linked entities, including the services Rapira and HTX. A September 29 notice then expanded the exchange's restricted-counterparty list and warned that even intermediary-wallet connections could trigger account reviews or limits.
The record stops short of proof that Brussels ordered the withdrawal, but it makes sanctions exposure the strongest available explanation. European scrutiny was already a live issue for the company. Austria's Financial Market Authority restricted new business at KuCoin's EU subsidiary in February over gaps in anti-money-laundering and sanctions-compliance appointments. The action centered on know-your-customer (KYC) and sanctions controls at the subsidiary level, the same areas the later counterparty notices extended platform-wide. The regulator lifted that ban in May, while separate operational restrictions stayed in place.
The regional retreat is also no longer isolated. Bitget restricted users in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan through an October 16 terms-of-service update, and MEXC announced its own Russia-Belarus exit on October 20. Three venues stepping back inside two weeks, each after months of tightening enforcement against Russian-linked flows, points to a shared compliance constraint rather than a run of unrelated commercial choices.
Read against the primary documents, the withdrawal looks compliance-driven rather than commercial. KuCoin's own notices chart a monthslong tightening that runs from the EU's July package through the September counterparty expansion, and Austria's supervisory history shows what falling short of European standards costs a venue with EU ambitions. Nothing on the public record states that regulators directed KuCoin to leave, and that causal step should be treated as unconfirmed. What is confirmed is the pattern: three major exchanges exiting the same two countries inside fourteen days. The cluster is likely to feed FUD among users across the wider region about which venue is next, and deadline-driven wind-downs compress selling and transfer activity into short windows. The concrete item to watch is the individual deadline schedule; once notices land, positions close and balances move on the exchange's timetable, not the customer's.