OpenSea, a marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has barred artists and collectors from Cuba, citing U.S. sanctions as the main reason for this action.
According to the terms of service for the OpenSea marketplace, users and individuals from sanctioned countries are not allowed. It is already known that the NFT marketplace complies with U.S. sanctions, which include countries such as Venezuela, Iran, and Syria. However, Cuba has now been added to this list due to recent restrictions on Cuban artists.
An OpenSea spokesperson stated:
“We comply with U.S. sanctions law, Our terms of service explicitly prohibit sanctioned individuals, individuals in sanctioned jurisdictions, or services from using OpenSea.”
In early December, the NFT Cuba Art Twitter account claimed that they were barred by OpenSea from viewing or listing their artwork while they still had possession of their wallets.
long time since we posted, unfortunate that this post needs to be this.@opensea has disabled our profile.
Not only do Cubans on the island, but those who have other nationalities have to endure censorship in web3 company.
Buying art from Cubans is not banned in the us embargo pic.twitter.com/7cccbmjNWR
— NFTcuba.ART 🇨🇺 (@nftcubaart) December 12, 2022
Erich Garcia Cruz, the founder of Bit Remasa, noted that their NFT collections were also banned. Gabriel Bianchini, the founder of Cryptocuban, displeased with the development, remarked, saying that the future of Web3 does not seem to be decentralized.
So sad to see that the future of web3 won’t be decentralized 🥺 @nftcubaart and @GianniDalerta are part of the Cuban web3 history and so much more! ❤️
— GabrielBianchini.ethᵍᵐ 🇨🇺 (@GGBIANCHINI) December 13, 2022
Cuban citizens have faced restrictions on their access to various online sites over the past year, including the OpenSea marketplace. A Cuban journalist’s account was suspended by MailChimp, Zoom, and WeTransfer in 2021, but later restored.
Following the implementation of new European Union restrictions amid the Ukraine conflict earlier this year, a number of cryptocurrency platforms, including OpenSea, were forced to discontinue their services for Russian users.
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