The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) seems to be strengthening technology-based crackdowns targeting cryptocurrency media.
Users across Russia have reported disruptions in access to various cryptocurrency news media. No official explanation has been provided for this.
To verify whether these connection issues occurred according to a more widespread pattern, we attempted to access several cryptocurrency media websites from various locations and conducted network-level diagnostics.
Several websites did not load on devices connected to domestic Wi-Fi networks. However, the same sites were accessible when using different connection methods.
Accordingly, it has been concluded that website issues or server outages are not the causes. The investigation results suggest that network-level interference is the culprit.
Blocking patterns suggest enforcement at the ISP level.
At the same time, cryptocurrency regulation in Russia is evolving. Measures are also underway to relax restrictions on individual cryptocurrency transactions.
In this context, the test results conducted by the Outset PR analysis team confirmed that network-level access restrictions are being enforced against many international cryptocurrency media.
For this analysis, we selected representative cryptocurrency and financial media reflecting diversity in language, region, and editorial direction.
Included are Benzinga, Coinis, Fastbull, FXEmpire, CoinGeek, CryptoNoticia, CoinTelegraph, CoinEdition, TheCoinRepublic, AMBCrypto, NadaNews, among others. This is not a complete list.
According to estimates cited by industry analysts, about 1 in 4 of the entire cryptocurrency and financial media may be affected by access restrictions.
In particular, BeInCrypto did not experience connection issues like this during testing. This has become a neutral comparison standard for evaluating whether restrictions are applied selectively or enforced as a whole.
Network-level blocking is not a new phenomenon in Russia. Authorities have already applied access restrictions to social media, messenger apps, and online gaming services.
After confirming that the blocked domains were not loading on domestic Wi-Fi networks, we conducted technical verification to further understand the actual enforcement methods.
The test focused on whether deep packet inspection (DPI) technology, which allows ISPs to selectively restrict internet traffic, was applied.
Using DPI circumvention tools allowed sites that were previously inaccessible to load normally. This change strongly suggests that the restrictions rely on DPI-based filtering rather than DNS manipulation, server issues, or site outages.
To assess whether there are differences by internet service provider, we asked 10 cryptocurrency users from different regions to attempt to access the same sites on domestic Wi-Fi networks without VPNs or other tools. Only 2 of them reported no major difficulties, while the others found that all sites failed to load.
This pattern differs from centralized access blocking. It aligns with a decentralized enforcement approach where providers apply restrictions according to their own technical systems and schedules.
As a result, some networks completely blocked access, while others allowed intermittent or continuous access.
Despite these regional differences, the blocking methods were very similar. Users experienced the same connection reset errors regardless of region or provider.
It is not an official block.
Additionally, we verified whether the problematic sites had been officially restricted. However, those domains did not appear in Roskomnadzor's public blacklist.
These results suggest that the restrictions are not due to standard content deletion procedures. Roskomnadzor also states that official disclosures are not necessarily required for certain access restriction measures.
According to Articles 65.1 and 65.2 of Russia's 'Communications Law', access to internet resources may be restricted. Information about such restrictions is not reflected in this public registry.
In summary, access to several cryptocurrency and financial media websites has been confirmed to be restricted on some domestic networks, while no restrictions were observed on others. The blocking measures were not implemented centrally but rather enforced by each provider.
The blocked sites did not exist in the public registry of Roskomnadzor, and consistent connection behavior was observed in regions where restrictions were applied.
In conclusion, various evidence shows that network-level access restrictions are implemented unevenly by internet service providers across Russia.