NFT marketplace OpenSea delisting Cuban artists and users: Artnet

Quick Take

  • OpenSea is actively delisting Cuban artists and users to comply with U.S. sanctions.

Leading NFT marketplace OpenSea is actively delisting Cuban artists and users to comply with U.S. sanctions.

“We comply with U.S. sanctions law,” an OpenSea spokesperson told Artnet News. “Our terms of service explicitly prohibit sanctioned individuals, individuals in sanctioned jurisdictions, or services from using OpenSea.”

The confirmation came after Twitter account NFTcuba.ART shared a screenshot of an email explaining that an account had been "disabled due to activity that goes against our Terms of Service."

Sanctions in 'decentralized' industry

Though most distributed ledger technology is inherently decentralized, the crypto industry still features large centralized platforms that comply with international sanctions.

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Earlier this month, Reuters reported that the U.S. Justice Department was weighing the possibility of charging the biggest crypto exchange, Binance, with money laundering and sanctions violations.

Near the end of November, crypto exchange Kraken agreed to a $362,o00 settlement for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran.

In October, Dapper Labs let users with connections to Russia withdraw their NFTs after temporarily freezing them to comply with EU sanctions. Additionally — and perhaps most notoriously — that month also saw the U.S. Treasury Department sanction open-source crypto mixing software Tornado Cash, an unprecedented move with wide-reaching privacy implications.


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About Author

Adam is the managing editor for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He is based in central Europe and was a managing editor and podcast host at the crypto exchange OKX's former research arm, OKX Insights. Before that, he co-founded BeInCrypto.com, which he elevated into one of the leading crypto media brands at its peak as the editor-in-chief. Earlier, he served as the editor-in-chief at Bitcoinist.com. Before joining the blockchain and crypto industry, he worked for Looper.com, Grunge.com and SVG.com. He tweets via @XBT002 and can be emailed at [email protected].

Editor

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