- The NFT market, OpenSea, has banned all artists from countries sanctioned by the US on its platform, such as Cuba.
- OpenSea indicated that it is simply complying with the US sanctions law, since Venezuela, Iran and Syria are also on the list of blocked users.
December is characterized by being a time of peace and harmony, in which good wishes and fraternity are in the air not only in Mexico, but almost throughout the world. Above all, the Christmas tradition has literally moved mountains, making even the war stop, an example of this was in 1914, during the First World War.
It was only a few hours, however, a group of soldiers spontaneously decided to put the war aside to fraternize with the human being who was under the enemy uniform.
However, not all share the good wishes or good will, since, on the eve of Christmas Eve and Christmas, the world’s largest non-fungible token (NFT) market, OpenSeaannounced that it banned digital artists from all countries sanctioned by the United States.
artist ban
The ban was announced a few days earlier, when NFTcuba.ART, project focused on, as its name says, help artists from Cuba to enter, market and succeed in the NFT industry, he wrote on his official Twitter account, that OpenSea deactivated his profile in the marketwhich prevented them from seeing or listing their art, although they still had access to their wallets.
According to a report Posted by Artnet, 30 NFT artists and collectors were banned from the platform. Among those most affected by the blockade are the renowned artists based in Havana, Gabriel Guerra Bianchini and the Cuban Art Factory.
However, this has not only affected artists from the island, since as we pointed out, it has also affected other countries indicated by the US.
“Not only Cubans on the island, but those with other nationalities have to endure censorship in web3 company“, wrote NFTcuba.ARTin addition to noting on its website, that the project was banned “probably just because it has the name of Cuba.”
Decentralization, in question
About, Bit Remasa founder Erich García Cruz pointed out that his non-fungible token collections were also blocked.
Given the situations of blocking Cuban artists, Gabriel Bianchini, the founder of Cryptocuban, pointed out that, with these actions, the future of Web3 It doesn’t seem to be decentralized.
In light of recent events, he forced himself to kraken to pay $362 thousand dollars, because of his violation of the agreement against Iran.
OpenSea fights back
For his part, OpenSealocated in New York, indicated that it is simply complying with US sanctions law, since Venezuela, Iran and Syria are also on the list of blocked users.
In fact, the signature He pointed out that, in his terms of service, sanctioned persons and persons in sanctioned jurisdictions are explicitly prohibited. In addition, indicated that the adherence of the NFT market to the US sanctions was notably known, so they have not done anything, that they have not said they would do.
In addition, the OpenSea spokesperson pointed out that the market will comprehensively evaluate what other measures they will have to carry out to serve the community and comply with applicable law.
“Our Terms of Service explicitly prohibit sanctioned persons, persons in sanctioned jurisdictions, or the Services from using OpenSea. We continue to comprehensively assess what further steps need to be taken to serve our community and comply with applicable lawthe OpenSea spokesperson said.
It is not an isolated case
Despite the discomfort that this ban has generated, it must be taken into account that in addition to OpenSea, other crypto platforms found it necessary to close their services to the Russians, as a consequence of the sanctions of the European Union, issued after the start of the war in Ukraine.
Several crypto platforms have ceased their services due to various sanctions. Likewise, the crypto community has harshly criticized these steps, an example of the feelings of the users, is represented by @GonezBullawho pointed out on his Twitter account, that real decentralized platforms that do not care about nationalities are needed.
You might be interested in: