Binance Says Venezuela Platform Is Being Hit by Access Restrictions

Venezuela’s users of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, are experiencing difficulty accessing the site, the company said in a post on X.

“Like several company websites in different segments in Venezuela, including social media, Binance’s pages have been facing access restrictions,” the exchange posted on Friday. The company said it was “monitoring the situation closely to address it in the best and fastest way possible” and that users’ funds were “SAFU,” an acronym for Secure Asset Fund for Users.

According to VE sin Filtro, a human-rights organization, the country’s state-run telephone and internet service provider CANTV is blocking Amazon CloudFront’s service, resulting in numerous blockages.

The restrictions come after Thursday’s announcement by President Nicolas Maduro that access to X would be blocked for 10 days to “put an end to plans on networks to sow violence, hatred and attack Venezuela from abroad.”

Turbulence in Venezuela deepened after the National Electoral Council proclaimed Maduro the winner of the July 28 presidential election. With 80% of the votes counted, Maduro won 51.2% against Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia’s 44.2%, the council said. It didn’t present official tallies. The opposition denounced the figures as fraudulent and said its own reckoning showed Gonzalez Urrutia the winner with 67% of the votes to Maduro’s 30% after 83% of the votes had been counted.

The information blackout promoted through the suspension of X comes in the context of numerous reports of arrests and human-rights abuses, including “credible information about detentions, injuries, and deaths, as well as violence perpetrated by security forces,” according to a United Nations statement.