Binance opens markets for Syrian nationals after US sanctions relief

Syrian nationals can now access Binance’s crypto services after the exchange removed the country from its list of prohibited jurisdictions. The announcement, made through a June 12 press release, followed US President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend sanctions on Syria in May. 

For the first time since 2019, residents in Syria can use spot and futures trading, staking, Binance Pay for cross-border transactions, and crypto education materials in Arabic. “Financial freedom should be for everyone,” Binance said in its statement.

Binance resumes trading activity in Syria

In its statement, Binance said millions of Syrians have a high interest in crypto because of its economic instability and high inflation. 

Syria, with a population of around 24 million and an estimated 8 to 15 million more living abroad, relies on remittances and informal money networks to survive repeated currency devaluations.

“These challenges likely contributed to Syria’s consistently high interest in Crypto. The country ranked among the top 10 countries globally for crypto-related search activity as recently as 2021,” the company explained.

According to Reuters, in August 2019, Binance halted its services in Iran after blacklisting the country as a “hard sanctioned” jurisdiction. 

“It is cheaper to ban all Syrians from the financial system than to audit individual transactions. This is the true meaning of self-centered collective punishment,” reckoned Syrian Professor in Economics, Karam Shaar in a 2021 interview, speaking on Binance closing locals’ accounts.

On resuming its services today, the exchange has promised to “offer real solutions that support Syria’s economic recovery.”

President Trump lifted US sanctions on Syria after diplomatic plea

As reported by Cryptopolitan on May 13, Trump announced to a gathering of Gulf leaders and business elites that his administration would lift all sanctions on Syria. Speaking in the presence of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Trump told the leaders it was an opportunity for Damascus to “start afresh.”

Still, some American officials are not convinced about Syria’s internal political stability. During Trump’s Middle East tour last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned during a Senate hearing, stating that the country could be “weeks, not many months, away from potential collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions.”

Rubio mentioned the post-President Bashar al-Assad’s removal from power last December, when Islamist-led factions took control of Damascus after a decade-long civil war. 

The secretary talked about attacks targeting minority groups, including the Alawite and Druze communities, as a sign of sectarian violence that “won’t go away.” He asked the US government to support Syria’s transitional leadership and prevent the country from any further political disputes.

According to foreign policy analyst Mike Benz, the deal was conditional on the transitional Syrian government working directly with US corporations. American firms, including telecom giant AT&T, energy major Chevron, and agribusiness groups, are reportedly looking to enter the Syrian market as part of post-conflict reconstruction agreements.

On the Julian Dorey Podcast, Benz questioned the ethics and contradictions embedded in the approach. 

“You’re simultaneously waging a war on drugs while your government is pumping up the world’s largest drug zone and sending soldiers off to die,” he said, referencing cases where US-backed operations used narcotics trafficking as a means to “fund regime-change wars.”

He also talked about the involvement of legal counsel like George Foote, an attorney affiliated with both AT&T and the US Institute of Peace (USIP), a government-affiliated body that previously coordinated with USAID on controversial agricultural projects.