​Metamask wallet will support sanctions against Russia

What’s new? The developers of the MetaMask cryptocurrency wallet have warned that users from a number of countries may lose access to the application. The blockages are linked to the restriction of Infura’s infrastructure platform in “certain jurisdictions” due to sanctions against Russia. The users from Venezuela, Lebanon, and Iran have reported problems accessing MetaMask. At the time of writing, the wallet is still working in Russia.

MetaMask’s announcement

What other companies will support the sanctions? Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said that the platform will be forced to block Russian users if the United States imposes this ban. For now, the exchange will not take any preventive measures.

8/ Some ordinary Russians are using crypto as a lifeline now that their currency has collapsed. Many of them likely oppose what their country is doing, and a ban would hurt them, too. That said, if the US government decides to impose a ban, we will of course follow those laws.— Brian Armstrong - barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) March 4, 2022

Tether Operations Limited, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, will also support restrictions against Russia if it receives a corresponding order from the government. Changpeng Zhao, head of the bitcoin exchange Binance, stated that his platform only complies with sanctions against Russians who are on the “black lists.”

Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino told Wublockchain: Tether did not receive a targeted request. But Tether is constantly conducting market monitoring to ensure that our operations are not in contravention of international sanctions. This is part of Tether’s rigorous compliance programme.— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) March 4, 2022

Which platforms have imposed restrictions? Some OpenSea users report being blocked from the marketplace. The platform is mostly inaccessible to Iranian IP addresses. The company’s representative stated:

“OpenSea blocks users and territories on the U.S. sanctions list from using our services—including buying, selling, or transferring NFTs on OpenSea—and our Terms of Service explicitly prohibit sanctioned users or users in sanctioned territories from using our services.”

Kuna, WhiteBIT, and CEX.io completely blocked users from the Russian Federation after the start of the military operation.