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- Due to the continued US sanctions, OpenSea has begun to remove customers from its platform.
- Several exchanges, including Binance and Kraken, have opposed a blanket ban.
Due to the continued US sanctions, the Ethereum-based NFT marketplace OpenSea has begun to remove customers from its platform. Following the recent tough financial penalties imposed on Russia, exchanges have been ordered to impose a restriction on Russian users.
However, several exchanges, including Binance and Kraken, have opposed a blanket ban, stating that they will penalize only particular organizations in accordance with US penalties.
OpenSea removed an artist
The matter came to light after an Iranian artist, @K1 Nazifi, discovered that they had been removed from the OpenSea platform following the recent upgrade. It was defined as “great bias against the Iranian community” by the artist.
The artists have also asked OpenSea to reverse their decision to boycott Iranian IPs and to keep regular people and the creative community out of politics. As a result, the users in Iran and Venezuela have faced the threat of this move. Many users have reacted angrily to OpenSea’s actions, claiming that they violate the ethos of the decentralized world.
Fall of Opensea
In recent months, OpenSea has come across a large number of dissatisfied consumers. With a recent $1.7 million external phishing attempt, a lawsuit over an allegedly “stolen” Bored Ape NFT, and $1.8 million paid to consumers who lost NFTs due to an OpenSea listing hack, the site continues to experience difficulties despite billions in monthly sales.
Arman, an OpenSea user from Iran, reported receiving an error 404 message when attempting to visit the marketplace. And, according to Arefeh Norouzii, their verified account was deactivated today “without reason.”
Ryan, an OpenSea Discord server administrator who frequently responds to help queries in the server, earlier stated this morning that he was “not aware of any Iranian account bans.”
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Will Infura and Metamask join Opensea?
Infura, a developer tool for creating decentralized applications, has taken additional steps to limit user access in Venezuela. As a result, one of the most popular wallet and infrastructure tools, Metamask, has been unusable.
Metamask has essentially recognized the cut-off by describing how users in restricted regions would see error messages if they attempt to use the wallet. ConsenSys, a U.S.-based startup fund, and Ethereum development studio, presently owns both – Infura and Metamask.
It would be fascinating to watch whether other US-based crypto sites join to limit user access in the face of the continued sanctions.
Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.
