Former Binance Head for the CIS, Smerkis, Sentenced to Five Years in Fraud Case
Vladimir Smerkis, the former head of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange in the CIS countries, has been sentenced to five years in prison in a case involving fraud on an especially large scale.
This was reported by Russian media outlets.
According to the investigation, in 2024, a crypto blogger approached Smerkis with a request to run an advertising campaign to attract new followers on social media. Smerkis allegedly promised to bring in about 2 million new users and received over 8.8 million rubles for this.
Investigators claim that after receiving the funds, he failed to deliver the promised service.
The court found 41-year-old Smerkis guilty of fraud on an especially large scale.
We also reported that Binance is launching prediction markets in partnership with PredictFun.
In the first quarter of 2026, the volume of the perpetual futures market reached $3.5 trillion—more than three times the volume of spot trading. Against this backdrop, Binance remains a key liquidity hub with an approximate monthly trading volume of $1.4 trillion.
