Satoshi’s whitepaper doesn’t mention passports and your Bitcoin doesn’t care where you were born but at the same time your exchange does. This week showed it again as Bitget and MEXC are ending services for customers in Russia and Belarus, further limiting their access to international crypto markets.

Bitget updated its restricted-jurisdiction list on October 16. A few days later MEXC announced its own withdrawal, citing regulatory requirements. Bitget also added Kazakhstan to its list.

The quiet part nobody says out loud

MEXC says the exit is about “global compliance” but the announcement doesn’t cite a specific regulatory order or sanctions decision, and there’s no evidence the two exits were coordinated. So why leave…