sanctioned Russian Exchange Garantex suspected of rebranding as Grinex

According to bitcoin knowledge firm TRM Labs, the shutdown of Russian exchange Garantex has probably rebranded as Grinex.

Prior to its demise by international enforcement agencies in March of this year, Garantex handled transactions worth more than$ 100 billion.

However, research from UK-based TRM Laboratory suggests that Grinex has been training and redistributing Garantex people ‘ goods using A7A5, a ruble-pegged cryptocurrency that is offered on Ethereum and Tron.

In January 2025, Garantex budget addresses began converting money into the A7A5 bitcoin, with Kyrgyz records proving that Old Vector, the token’s creator, was already registered on December 13th, 2024.

TRM Laboratories suggests that the sanctioned change was conscious that it was in danger of closing down, and that A7A5 was a way for its users to return any assets that might be lost in the event of a operation.

In the weeks leading up to the U.S.-led police motion that destroyed Garantex, on-chain research reveals that significant amounts of payments involving A7A5 were made in January.

Tellingly, TRM furthermore mentions how Grinex was only promoted by Garantex’s Telegram channels a few days after it was shut down, with the new trade officially registered in Kyrgyzstan on December 23, 2024.

Without any noticeable or proper connection to Garantex, the people responsible for registering Grinex and A7A5 are glaring unknowns.

Duulat-eldar Sagynbeki Subankulov, who TRM Labs believes may be a former professional gamers, appears to have registered Grinex.

Tatyana Sergeevna Menshikova, who is still unnamed, authorized Old Vector in the interim.

However, for TRM Labs, these two people’s darkness adds” an additional level of confusion to Grinex’s origins.”

One thing is well known: Grinex’s user interface resembles Garantex in some way, and the platform has also signed a contract with a sanctioned exchange to use its employees, as reported on the Garantex-linked Satoshkin group’s Telegram channel.

TRM Laboratory explained the connections between the two systems further by stating that” Garantex has a special on-chain thumbprint, and Grinex uses this same biometric.”

Particular significance is the use of intermediary addresses, which are “associated with the transfer of funds out of Garantex,” to deposit funds ( mostly in A7A ) into Grinex client addresses.

Additionally, TRM Labs even disclosed to that Sergey Mendeleev, a co-founder of Garantex, was “prominent in the news of Grinex’s launch,” which was posted on Telegram.

Additionally, Chainalysis even leans in this way, and it’s not just TRM Laboratory that thinks Grinex is actually Garantex 2.0.

According to Head of National Security Intelligence Andrew Fierman, speaking to ,” We’ve been monitoring the alleged connections between Grinex and Garantex, and we’ve seen indications that Grinex is likely to be the relaunch of Garantex,” according to Chainalysis.

Previous Garantex users who visited the exchange’s offices, where they could exchange their funds directly to Grinex, are reported to Chainalysis, according to Fierman.

” Sergei Mendeleev, a Garantex co-founder, has also shared a Telegram post about ] the launch of Grinex, removing any platform similarities with laughing emojis,” he continued.

At its peak, Garantex was responsible for 82 % of all global crypto-currency transactions linked to sanctioned entities, but even after it was sanctioned by OFAC in April 2022, it managed to handle 70 % of these transactions.

For Fierman, the evident rebirth of Grinex raises important questions about whether sanctions and blackouts can ever be completely successful in eradicating illegal bitcoin activity.

Marketing has become a well-known instrument for sanctioned crypto entities, he said, which we will be closely monitoring.

Other analyses from TRM Labs, which found that two other Russia-linked exchanges ( along with Grinex ), have been capturing Garantex’s earlier volumes in recent months, highlight this problem.

One of them is “high-risk change” Rapira, while the other is “high-risk trade” Rapira, which is tied to Sergey Mendeleev and was Garantex’s third-largest on-chain party.

When Garantex was shut down in March, both of these channels saw increases in traffic, and Rapira has grown even though ABCEX experienced a decline in April.

edited by Stacy Elliott.