As a consequence of worldwide sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian users may be banned from MetaMask and OpenSea.
Sanctions on Russian citizens might include asset freezes subject to US jurisdiction, access restrictions or prohibitions to the US financial system, including transactions involving US individuals and businesses, and denial of entry into the US.
Following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, governments throughout the world imposed a slew of economic and other sanctions on Russia, slamming the country’s banking, energy, and military-industrial sectors, as well as individuals and sporting events.
In less than a week, other accounts had the same problem. “Users and territories on the US sanctions list are prohibited from using our services, including buying, selling, or transferring NFTs,” OpenSea said in a statement, in response to user complaints about losing access to their accounts in countries subject to certain US sanctions.
On Thursday, Iranian users of OpenSea, the world’s largest marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), reported being unable to log in to their accounts, with numerous artists stating that the site had deleted their NFT collections. On the same day, customers in Venezuela reported being unable to use MetaMask, the most popular Ethereum cryptocurrency wallet.
MetaMask’s parent company, ConsenSys, has said that it follows US sanctions on “Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, and Ukraine’s Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk provinces.”
