“WhiteBIT has actively supported Ukraine’s war effort, donating $11 million to military initiatives and processing over $160 million in donations.”, — write: www.coindesk.com
The country’s prosecutor general designated WhiteBIT and its parent company, W Group, as “undesirable organizations,” a legal label that criminalizes any activity involving the firm in Russia.
Russian authorities accused the exchange of building “gray schemes” to channel funds out of the country and supporting the Ukrainian military through financial and technical infrastructure since the start of the war in February 2022.
WhiteBIT, founded in 2018 by Ukrainian entrepreneur Volodymyr Nosov, said in a note shared with CoinDesk that the decision reinforces its commitment to supporting Ukraine.
The company said it will leave the Russian market in early 2022, shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion began. It blocked all Russian and Belarusian users and removed ruble trading pairs, a move that it says cost it about 30% of its user base at the time.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, one year into the war, started sending official letters to major cryptocurrency exchanges, including Coinbase, Binance, Bybit and WhitEBIT to block Russian users.
At the time, some exchanges, including Coinbase and Kraken, responded, saying they wouldn’t be enforcing a blanket ban on Russian-linked addresses without being legally required to do so, but would instead block accounts or transactions involving sanctioned entities.
Despite the setback, WhiteBIT said it has grown eightfold since then, now serving over 8 million users and expanding into the US market.
According to Russian prosecutors, WhiteBIT directed at least $11 million to Ukraine’s military, including nearly $1 million for drone procurement. The company confirmed the figures and said its payments processing arm, Whitepay, has facilitated over $160 million in donations to defense and humanitarian efforts.
“Over the four years of full-scale war, WhiteBIT has donated around 11 million USD of its own funds to support Ukraine’s defense forces and humanitarian initiatives for civilians. These actions reflect the company’s values and civic position as a business with roots in Ukraine operating during wartime,” the company said.
Russia’s designation means any Russian citizen who interacts with WhiteBIT could now face criminal charges.
KuCoin captured a record share of centralized exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the broader crypto market.
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per monthmarking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralized exchange volumeas KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumeswhich slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly spliteach exceeding $500 billion for the year, signaling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activityreinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activityindicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
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Infrastructure gains and regulatory momentum are accelerating tokenization. A market structure bill is the missing link for the next phase of digital asset adoption.
- Jefferies said the CLARITY Act is the clearest roadmap yet for US digital asset market structure, even as passage looks uncertain.
- A proposed ban on stablecoin yield could reshape incentives for exchanges and issuers, while leaving transaction-based rewards intact.
- TradFi tokenization efforts are likely to accelerate if regulatory clarity unlocks broader participation by banks and market infrastructure firms, the bank said.
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