After the European Union imposed new sanctions, Blockchain Dapper Labs blocked Russian crypto wallets. The developer must indeed align with EU sanctions.
What EU sanctions?
Tensions between Ukraine and Russia are on the rise again. The bridge that connects Crimea to Russia was sabotaged by car bomb. For its part, the Kremlin, in retaliation, dropped more than 80 bombs across Ukraine on Monday, October 10. These are civil and energy infrastructures that have been targeted and we deplore several dozen deaths.
The European Union on the other hand continue the penalties for his part in support of Ukraine. Thus, the EU announced on 6 October last a complete ban on providing crypto wallets, accounts and banking services to all Russians. This is valid for all assets and whatever their value.
Before this announcement, crypto currency transfers were limited to a maximum of 10,000 euros. From now on, no more pennies will flow between EU and Russian digital asset accounts.
These measures can be understood with the law that Russia wants to adopt. This one wants to give theauthorization for mining and international crypto payments. Russia would also work on a crypto-rouble, a promising digital currency but which seems difficult to set up today in view of the number of penalties. Indeed, in the face of sanctions, the Kremlin must find new solutions to bring in international funds.
Dapper Labs reacts to sanctions
Dapper therefore logically stated that all Russian accounts will no longer be able to buy, sell or trade NFTs. Additionally, the sports-focused blockchain company has prohibits the withdrawal and addition of funds to their balances. The company clarified:
“It is now prohibited to provide wallet, account or custody services of crypto-assets of any value to accounts with connections to Russia, regardless of the wallet amount.”
The company pointed out that since its “payment processing and stored value service partner is subject to EU regulations“, Dapper was ordered toimpose restrictions on these accounts under European law.
The firm announced that the affected users were mainly holders of Russian-related NFT collections. The accounts are however not closed and users will therefore always be able to consult their collections. The same goes for the NFTs which will remain intact.
An approach sometimes misunderstood
Some platform users didn’t react very well to Dapper Labs’ decision. This is the case of Internet user XBT002 who gave his opinion on the blockchain censorship and privacy :
“If you freeze ‘accounts’, you are actively censoring an industry that was founded around censorship resistance.”
Another Twitter user, allegedly employed at Twitter said:
“We are working quickly to understand the full implications of these sanctions on our community. And of course, we sent out communications to all affected Dapper Labs wallet holders and the wider Dapper community.He then added in another tweet: “We know this is incredibly difficult news. If you have any questions or comments, you can contact me, contact Dapper support, ask in our Discord community, or comment below. We will continue to provide updates as soon as we have more information, thank you.”
About Dapper Labs
The Dapper Labs blockchain platform specializes in games and digital assets. NFT Collections NBA TopShot use Dapper’s Blockchain as well as NFL All Day and UFC Strike. In early October, the blockchain announced the launch of a new NFT platform called LaLiga Golazos. This initiative is a direct competitor to Sorare.com and is based on the most epic moments of the Spanish La Liga.
The company is based in Vancouver, Canada and is now worth $7.6 billion. Today, October 11, 2022, the price of Flow (Dapper labs) (FLOW) is at 1.56 USD, a decrease of -5.63% over 24 hours. The FLOW cryptocurrency has a 24-hour trading volume of $43.7 million, with a market cap of $1.6 billion.
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