- On March 3, users from Venezuela reported that they could not access the Ethereum network in their MetaMask.
- In order to use their ETH address in MetaMask, Venezuelan users needed to use a VPN.
- MetaMask has done as Pontius Pilate and has washed its hands of the problem blaming Infura, which is the one that gives Metamask access to the Ethereum network.
Venezuelan users have reported that since the morning of March 3 they could not access the Ethereum network on their MetaMask, supposedly for US sanctions issues.
News that quickly spread throughout the crypto ecosystem. Wasn’t MetaMask a decentralized wallet? What happened?
Last Thursday when users tried to access their wallet, the application gave them the following message:
“Metamask could not connect to the blockchain host. Check the possible reasons here”.
Immediately it was thought that it could be a connectivity problem, because in the country the internet connection is more of a luxury than a right and connection problems are the bread of the day.
However, the problem continued and MetaMask worked fine on other blockchains such as Binance Smart Chain (BSC). So it was not a connectivity problem, and when you clicked on the Metamask warning, it immediately directed you to the next article.
Also, the content of that page had been updated the previous day showing some kind of recent policy change. But, the most alarming thing is that he expressed that “Due to regulations in certain areas, the service may not be available.”
Platforms cut off access to Venezuelans
This error began to invade social networks Venezuela while more and more users presented the same error. Then, fear and hopelessness began to be present with comments such as:
“Now Metamask has censored Venezuelans”, “another service in the world of cryptocurrencies that we cannot access because we are Venezuelans”, “another one that closes the doors for us”.
It is worth remembering that Venezuelans have lost access to endless cryptocurrency and NFT platforms due to the regulations of these firms that try to be part of the crypto ecosystem, but also the traditional one, such as: Coinbase, OpenSea, Crypto.com, among others.
So that the phenomenon of censorship is not strange to the life of the Venezuelan cryptocurrency user and therefore the news that MetaMask has censored the Ethereum network to Venezuelans was not unreasonable either. But…. There was something strange in the atmosphere.
As more uUsers from Venezuela realized that in order to use their ETH address in MetaMask, a VPN was necessary and that fear and hopelessness diminished. Another question was present, Metamask did not claim to be a decentralized wallet and therefore resistant to censorship? How is this possible?
If we go to the main page of MetaMask we can read that:
“MetaMask generates passwords and keys on your device, so only you have access to your accounts and data. You always choose what to share and what to keep private”.
Therefore, this case of censorship was not only a strange case among Venezuelans themselves, but also throughout the world. Well, the default browser wallet that was supposedly decentralized had failed.
Which left the principle of decentralization hit again by the desire of the platforms to belong to this world of regulators. But did MetaMask really block Venezuela?
The answer to this question has two edges, one easy and one complicated.
The simple answer is no, MetaMask did not block Venezuelans from their accessibility to the Ethereum blockchain network since Venezuelans progressively regained normal access to Metamask during the afternoon and evening of the same Thursday, March 3, 2022.
The reason? according to Metamask, is that they like Metamask, “They can’t tell what country a user is in because we’re client-side software that runs on the user’s device and doesn’t store the information.”
for which, MetaMask has done like Pontius Pilate and has washed its hands of the problem by blaming Infuria, which is the one that gives Metamask access to the Ethereum network and whose organization is centralized and a resident of the United States.
This firm stated that due to a “problem” users were disconnected who should not be disconnected since in the process of updating the guidelines of the US sanctions policies they made errors in the configurations.
Therefore, they proceeded to reconnect users who had been disconnected from the Ethereum network. In this case, all Venezuelan users.
the complicated answer
Even though MetaMask has expressed that they were not to blame since they are a decentralized software that does not store user information, yes they rely on centralized service providers that provide access to the various blockchain and sidechain networks that they serve.
That is why, through MetaMask, the firm Infura was able to know the geolocation of all Venezuelan users and block them for a few hours. Therefore, it has remained Although MetaMask supposedly does not have information about the end users, the clients of the explorer wallet do, and therefore, the regulators.
The situation has awakened the inhabitants of the entire ecosystem to begin to raise their voices between “saying to be decentralized and really being” and MetaMask has demonstrated it.
Although it was through Metamask that the firm located in the United States was able to block all users from a specific geographical area, in this case Venezuela. The browser wallet allows you to change the access nodes to the blockchain for whatever the user wants, including the RPC node itself.
What supposedly could avoid another situation like the one experienced on March 3.
How to change the location of Ethereum RPC nodes?
First, and perhaps most important, is finding a new RPC node address. Even within the main page of Ethereum, it teaches how to run a node personally and what are the pros and cons of this decision.
Note: In the midst of the current global situation, perhaps it is not a bad idea to start being completely decentralized, right?
Once you have an address of a new node, it is only a matter of changing the default configuration of the RPC nodes.
- We go to the “My accounts” window
2. Then to the Settings option
3. We go down to the “Networks” option and select the Ethereum network.
4. We change the configuration to the new address of the new RPC node. As we can see, the default is Infura’s.
Once you complete all these steps successfully, you will be able to use the Ethereum network again.
In this way you can get rid of future blockages but the question remains MetaMask, is it a decentralized wallet?
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