A “covert” prohibition on cryptocurrency has just been activated by Belarus, which effectively confines local holdings behind a rigorous, new communications barrier.
Platform blocking was expanded in Belarus during December, thereby intensifying restrictions on exchange access and strengthening the perimeter of the High-Tech Park for domestic residents.
The action corresponds to a broader access strategy across the EMEA and APAC regions. This framework now employs telecom-level blocklists, removal from application stores, and strict Know-Your-Customer (KYC) barriers to regulate which users can reach the identical USDT and Bitcoin order books.
The practical outcome is that a return of capital controls is effectively achieved within a digital format, where local licenses, IP ranges, and passports determine both the trading location and the cost of withdrawal.
The restricted resources list, utilized for blocking at the Internet Service Provider (ISP) level, is continually being expanded by Belarus’s communications registry, BelGIE.
Local reports published in December highlighted new obstructions on foreign exchange user interfaces, which were implemented in addition to a legislative framework that restricts dealing with individuals in Belarus exclusively to High-Tech Park operators and curtails peer-to-peer (P2P) activity.
Unregistered exchangers have been targeted by government authorities, concurrently with the European Union’s latest sanctions which, effective February 24, 2025, prohibit Belarusian citizens from maintaining wallets with EU-based providers.
Based on Onlíner’s reporting on those restrictions, the ban on wallets removed a frequent avenue for secure custody, compelling residents to either utilize authorized High-Tech Park (HTP) operators or transition toward unofficial, unregulated channels.
The instruments for implementation are characterized as both rapid and uncomplicated.
Traffic is rerouted at the telecommunications carrier stratum via IP and DNS blocks, mobile access is eliminated by application stores, and exchanges erect stringent Know-Your-Customer (KYC) barriers that definitively halt both novel and established users based on their country of residence.
The December measures undertaken by Russia, which incorporated new blocks on platforms such as Snapchat and placed restrictions on FaceTime, demonstrated the rapidity with which content filtering is expanded across consumer applications, according to a report from Reuters.
When these identical enforcement mechanisms are deployed against wallet user interfaces (UIs), API gateways, and exchange domains, they generate instantaneous service disruptions for small institutions and retail investors, compelling transaction flow into either unlicensed transfer methods or officially sanctioned local venues.
The Trend Extends Far Beyond Belarus and Russia
India intensified its second round of actions against foreign platforms on October 1, 2025. On that date, formal notifications were dispatched by FIU-IND to 25 Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), simultaneously mandating the blocking of their URLs and mobile applications due to non-compliance with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) registration requirements, as reported by The Economic Times.
The designated route for readmission—first register, then remit fines, followed by operating under oversight—is already discernible.
Binance was registered with FIU earlier in 2024. Subsequently, a fine of ₹188.2 crore, equivalent to approximately $2.25 million, was paid by the firm, according to a Reuters report.
Thailand formally established its own boundary on June 28, 2025. This action was coordinated with the Ministry of Digital Economy and law enforcement to obstruct Bybit, CoinEx, OKX, XT, and 1000X for engaging in operations without requisite local authorization, as confirmed by the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Supervision was transferred in Indonesia from Bappebti to the Financial Services Authority (OJK) and Bank Indonesia on January 10, 2025, according to a joint press note from OJK. This measure establishes the administrative foundation for access governed by licensing requirements and more stringent entry and exit points for funds.
How These Tools Are Reshaping Market Structure
When accessibility narrows, liquidity is consolidated onto sanctioned venues. Consequently, the overall market depth then becomes contingent upon the specific trading platform rather than being determined by the underlying asset.
According to Kaiko’s 2025 assessment, the liquidity depth for Bitcoin (BTC) was maintained on properly regulated exchanges, whereas the market depth for altcoins experienced a decline earlier in the year.
When administrative areas necessitate withdrawal via the deletion of applications and URLs, markets typically observe temporary disruptions, elevated slippage and wider spreads, and premiums placed on stablecoin and local fiat currency pairs on the remaining access points until the flow of funds is successfully rerouted.
Actions implemented by the Philippines that severed access to the Binance platform produced comparable patterns concerning the risk of withdrawal and accessibility to fiat currency on-ramps.
Belarus is considered insignificant in terms of worldwide trading volume, therefore a noticeable impact on the global Bitcoin (BTC) order book will not be observed from its domestic users alone. Nevertheless, the integrity of the local boundary holds significance.
The potential consequences for market makers and retail participants in markets where access is restricted can be elucidated by a straightforward hypothetical situation.
Consider a situation where domestic users are responsible for a share of the total taker volume on a specific venue . A block decreases the local taker flow by a factor alpha over a timeframe , typically spanning two to six weeks, until the migration process is finalized. The market depth then responds with an elasticity varepsilon that typically ranges between 0.4 and 0.7 for mid-capitalization assets.
Should fall below 0.5% for major assets in Belarus, global order books will experience negligible fluctuation. Local order books, which include High-Tech Park (HTP) venues and BYN (Belarusian ruble) ramps, can become thinned in a manner that expands bid-ask spreads and fees, as market makers factor in the increased compliance and operational risk.
For alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins), the impact of elasticity is intensified because the inventories held by market makers are smaller, and the pathways for hedging are directed through fewer, more fragmented order books.
Regional Flow Trends Show Access Limits and Usage Can Coexist
Europe is ranked by Chainalysis as the most significant cryptocurrency region based on the value received in 2025, with Russia being the leader for inflows across the EMEA region. This finding aligns with a global environment where high-profile restrictions and genuine adoption are proceeding simultaneously.
The fastest inclination toward adoption is exhibited by the APAC region in the most recent index, with India occupying the top position and the United States ranking second, according to data from Chainalysis.
This implies that URL blockades imposed in India extend beyond the domestic user base, since substantial offshore venues service global liquidity providers and counterparties that engage in arbitrage across various regions.
When those conduits are closed to a substantial user base, even if only for a limited period, the costs associated with routing, bridge depth, and hedging are altered for trading desks situated outside of India.
Presently, three distinct models of enforcement are discernible across the APAC and EMEA regions.
The comprehensive geographical blocking mechanism exists, where traffic is rerouted away at the telecommunications carrier level and via mobile application stores, with Thailand and Belarus serving as distinct illustrations.
The model of license-based gating, which involves establishing onshore silos, also exists; this has been employed by Malaysia and Türkiye, according to the digital assets framework from the Securities Commission Malaysia. This approach generates market share for locally regulated exchanges without instituting a complete prohibition.
Finally, there is the path of re-entry via registration, which is utilized in India. In this model, fines, registration requirements, notifications, and blockades temporarily isolate non-compliant liquidity while progressively redirecting trading volume back toward regulated pools over an extended period.
While each approach generates a distinct timeline profile for market depth and trading spreads, they all contribute to the fragmentation of the comprehensive, global perspective of the order book.
Key 2026 Risks Center on Updates to the Same Playbook
Domains can be incorporated into BelGIE by Belarus, and pressure on peer-to-peer (P2P) operators can be heightened, with circulars issued by the ministry serving as the initiating factors.
Additional blocks from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) can be issued by India if the notifications sent in October do not result in registrations and the payment of fines. Enforcement is subsequently pushed through Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and application stores via orders from MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology).
Blocks can be extended by Thailand to encompass domains and wallet user interfaces (front-ends) that attempt to circumvent the current list, with the rate of enforcement being signaled by bulletins from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The policy direction of Pakistan is gravitating toward a regulated structure that might bring in licensing along with access restrictions for foreign platforms. Meanwhile, the UAE’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) has demonstrated a preference for compliance-focused geo-fencing against unauthorized solicitations, according to market analysis, which aims to direct transaction flow rather than completely discontinue it.
The transactional behavior for order routing will continue to evolve as telecommunications regulators institute additional blockades and venues fortify their Know-Your-Customer (KYC) boundaries.
IP and API-based geographical restrictions compel users toward Peer-to-Peer (P2P) trading, Over-The-Counter (OTC) desks, and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). This shift, in turn, diminishes transparent price discovery and compromises risk models that rely upon consolidated order books.
The share of Over-The-Counter (OTC) trading is augmented in locales where entry to exchange platforms becomes constrained, and custody risk is transferred to providers subject to less oversight, particularly in situations where access to wallet services domiciled in the European Union is denied to certain nationalities.
The dual-layered system implemented in Belarus—specifically, the High-Tech Park (HTP) perimeter combined with an EU wallet prohibition based on residency—increases the likelihood that users will adopt unregulated, “gray” custodianship, which lacks comprehensive safeguards for client assets.
For corporate treasurers and active traders, the resilient strategy involves delineating venue access according to jurisdiction. Hedging operations are to be segmented across regulated pools that possess dependable fiat ramps, and repeated basis shocks should be anticipated on region-specific trading pairs following enforcement actions.
The ranking system for exchanges developed by Kaiko can be utilized to anchor the selection of venues and provide snapshots of liquidity depth, while regional flow data from Chainalysis can be used to frame the speed at which trading volumes are rerouted following changes in application and Internet Service Provider (ISP) access.
Explicit safeguards regarding working capital and slippage are necessary for altcoin trading pairs, as those order books are the first to shrink when domestic takers disappear.
For business units with clientele in specific regions, inventories should be supplied from onshore venues whenever feasible, and settlement systems should be maintained as redundant to circumvent operational interruptions during block orders.
The Access Barriers Are Shifting — and Price Signals Are Already Showing
Compliance is evolving into a market share tactic across the APAC region; supervised restoration of service is purchased through registration and fines in India; and in EMEA, liquidity silos are carved out using licensing requirements without completely deactivating cryptocurrency activity.
The December blockades initiated by Belarus demonstrate the swiftness with which a nation can redefine the boundary regarding which order book is viewable by whom, and at what corresponding cost.
Europe’s proportion of value received is maintained, even as regulations are becoming more stringent in certain sections of the EMEA region. Concurrently, the adoption pattern observed in APAC means that any perimeter action taken by India inherently feeds back into global liquidity management.
Liquidity depth is now clustered on a more limited group of compliant venues, a characteristic that will influence the management of inventory and the strategy for hedging as administrative areas alternate between supervised return pathways, licensing gates, and geographical blockades.
“The resurgence of capital controls is executed instantaneously, at the API level, and with stealth,” a characterization that is substantiated by the December surge of widespread platform blockades in Russia and the exchange restrictions that were progressively implemented across the APAC and EMEA regions this year.
Compliance is developing into a tactic for securing market share across the APAC region, with the model established by India—register, pay, and resume—already being demonstrated in the results observed for prominent platforms.
The two-tiered barrier in Belarus, comprising the High-Tech Park (HTP) perimeter and restrictions on access to EU wallets, implies that the cost of exit and custody has been altered for its residents. This transformation is reflected in the market, specifically where liquidity currently resides.
