Ukrainian Binance Users Face New Fiat Withdrawal Restrictions: Navigating the Latest Crypto Hurdle
Another day, another regulatory speed bump for crypto users—this time hitting Ukrainian traders on the world's largest exchange.
Binance tightens the taps on fiat withdrawals for Ukrainian accounts, adding fresh friction to converting digital assets back into traditional currency. The move highlights the persistent patchwork of regional compliance demands that exchanges juggle daily.
The Compliance Squeeze
Local banking partners and evolving regulatory directives are forcing the platform's hand. It's a familiar dance: exchanges adjust operations territory-by-territory to keep the lights on, often leaving users scrambling to adapt their cash-out strategies.
Workarounds and Pivot Plays
Savvy users aren't waiting around. Many are exploring P2P trading avenues, shifting into stablecoins, or leveraging other off-ramps to bypass the new bottleneck. It's a real-time lesson in crypto agility—when one door closes, the community finds a window, a back alley, or creates a new door entirely.
The move underscores a core tension in crypto's growth story: the clash between borderless digital asset ideals and the very real, very localized rules of traditional finance. After all, what's a bull market without a few arbitrary capital controls to keep things interesting? It's almost as if the old financial system doesn't want you to leave.
Crypto exchange Binance halts withdrawals to cards in Ukraine
Binance, the world’s biggest trading venue for digital assets, has suspended fiat withdrawals for some users in Ukraine, Minfin reported this week.
The Ukrainian financial news outlet quoted a statement sent by the cryptocurrency exchange to its clients in the Eastern European nation.
The message informs customers that direct withdrawals to Visa and MasterCard accounts in the country are restricted, starting December 29, 2025.
This particular withdrawal option has been temporarily suspended until further notice, the publication highlighted in a post on Monday.
The news was relayed by other business news sources in the region, including the Russian-language edition of Forbes and RBC, which quoted another Ukrainian report by the Strana.ua online newspaper.
Recurring buys, the automated orders for cryptocurrency purchases, will no longer be executed either, the original report also unveiled.
Limit buy orders, or the feature allowing purchases of cryptocurrencies at a specified or lower price, have been canceled as well.
Other fiat options are still available
At the same time, deposits to the platform are largely unaffected, including Visa and MasterCard transactions. Support for Apple Pay and Google Pay top-ups is maintained, too.
It’s also worth noting that wires through the SWIFT global interbank payment system remain a viable option for Ukrainians, both for deposits and withdrawals. Minfin also emphasized:
“The popular payment service Zen.com, often used for transactions with euros, Polish zlotys, and other currencies, is also listed as an available method. However, according to the announcement, its full functionality for deposits and withdrawals is expected only on January 6, 2026.”
Users who need to make urgent withdrawals of fiat funds have been advised to either order a SWIFT transfer or resort to an alternative method, including peer-to-peer (P2P) trades, if these are available in their respective region.
Binance says blockade does not affect all Ukrainians
Citing a subsequent statement from Binance, the Ukrainian website clarified that the fiat restrictions do not affect all Ukrainian citizens, but only those who had used the services of Bifinity.
Bifinity UAB is Binance’s Lithuanian-registered subsidiary, which was established to facilitate fiat deposits and withdrawals for residents of European jurisdictions.
The leading crypto exchange explained:
“The recent announcement regarding changes to payment methods applies exclusively to users in Ukraine who previously used Bifinity services … These changes will take effect on December 29 and are due to maintenance and partner infrastructure updates.”
In mid-December, Binance announced that it planned to discontinue Bifinity services for fiat transactions, starting December 31, 2025, as a result of amendments in European law.
In its latest message to Ukrainian traders, Binance also remarked that the changes are not related to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) and do not affect P2P transactions.
“Users can still deposit and withdraw funds, as well as buy and sell crypto assets using available payment methods,” the trading platform stressed.
Ukrainian crypto adoption surges during war
The popularity of Bitcoin and the like has been growing in Ukraine over the past decade, and the country has been repeatedly ranked among the top crypto adopters in the region and beyond, most recently in the 2025 Geography of Cryptocurrency study by blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis.
Crypto usage spiked after Ukraine’s central bank imposed fiat restrictions to curb capital flight after Russia launched its full-scale military invasion of the country in 2022. This was highlighted earlier this year in a report by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a U.K.-based think tank.
The RUSI analysis also suggested that crypto-related crime is depriving the Ukrainian state of billions of U.S. dollars in budget revenues that remain uncollected. The government in Kyiv has lately been taking steps to regulate the nation’s expanding crypto space.
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