Binance said Friday it will stop processing transactions involving HTX and 10 other crypto platforms starting August 23, matching a European Union sanctions package targeting entities the bloc says have helped Russia evade restrictions over its invasion of Ukraine.
The list Binance published — HTX, Rapira, Aifory Pro, ABCeX, WhiteBird, NoOnecrypto INC., Tradex, Monease Ltd, BitPapa, Exnode, and EXMO — corresponds directly to Council Regulation 2026/1848, adopted by the EU on July 23, which bans transactions with 14 crypto and payment platforms, 11 of which become illegal to deal with on August 23. Binance copied the names precisely, including unusual spellings like "NoOnecrypto INC." and "Exnode Pay (Arvix)," rather than compiling its own independent risk list. Transactions attempted with any listed platform on or after the effective date may be held for compliance review, and Binance warned that restrictions could extend to affected wallets while reviews are underway.
HTX, formerly known as Huobi, is the most consequential name on the list by scale. The exchange discloses 59.49 million registered accounts, though only about 420,000 were active in spot trading over the past six months — a gap that matters because the restriction targets fund transfers rather than trading itself, meaning HTX's order books keep functioning even as the route for moving value in or out of Binance narrows. The UK froze the assets of Huobi Global S.A. in May, citing financial services HTX allegedly provided to A7 LLC, a Russian payment network the UK Treasury says belongs to sanctioned Moldovan politician Ilan Shor and Russian state bank Promsvyazbank — a network British officials claim moved more than $90 billion last year. HTX has rejected the sanctions and told users their funds remain safe, while the UK's Financial Conduct Authority separately sued HTX in London's High Court over allegedly illegal crypto advertisements.
This is Binance's fourth distinct round of compliance-driven platform restrictions in August alone, a pace Blockhead has tracked as US and European sanctions regimes have converged on overlapping targets. Blockhead reported on August 7 that Binance had already restricted Shelbit and Aban Tether Exchange the same day the US Treasury sanctioned both platforms for allegedly moving funds tied to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, part of a broader "Economic Fury" campaign that has designated Iran-linked crypto platforms roughly every month or two since January. Binance added A7 Nigeria, A7 Africa, and PilotFinance Ltd to its restricted list on August 13 — the same Shor-linked network now surfacing again through HTX's EU designation, suggesting overlapping US and EU sanctions targets are converging on some of the same underlying payment infrastructure from different jurisdictions.
Binance's restrictions consistently arrive as a direct mirror of government sanctions lists rather than the exchange's own independent risk assessments — a posture that limits Binance's legal exposure but also means its compliance policy is only as current as the slowest-moving regulator with jurisdiction over a given platform. For institutions and counterparties trying to track which platforms carry sanctions risk in real time, that mirroring behavior is itself useful information: watching Binance's restriction announcements has effectively become a faster way to track EU and US enforcement actions than following either regulator's own public notices directly.
