On 6th October 2022, prominent blockchain based services provider Dapper Labs announced the suspension of accounts belonging to Russian citizens following the newly imposed sanctions against Russia and Russian residents. The European Union (EU) went on to take the decision to put sanctions against the country.
According to the recent set of sanctions from the EU, various supply of crypto asset wallets—its accounts and custody services—will be banned. The ban is also said to not to spare the overall assets regardless of their value.
Soon after the EU’s sanctions, the developer of Flow blockchain came forward and stated to refrain Russian accounts from selling, buying and sending non-fungible tokens as gifts, to withdraw funds from the related accounts or even add more assets to their current balance.
Dapper Labs said the cryptocurrency wallet, account or custody services regardless of their values will not be provided services given their connections to Russia or Russian citizens.
Given their falling under the regulations of the European Union, the firm was said to impose the sanctions against the Russian accounts obligating the European laws.
Further the firm added that it has not banned the accounts completely. Users of these closed accounts still will be able to access and take a look at their non-fungible token holdings. Moreover, the regulations will not hinder any new NFT purchase of users where it will belong to
the user only.
The EU’s sanctions include completely banning all the cross-border payments in crypto assets from Russia and the European Union. This made the way for completely prohibiting all the cryptocurrency wallets, accounts and related custody services.
Decisions like crypto payments sanctions against Russia from Dapper like firms become crucial in order to show their compliance with the laws in order to mitigate the risks of harsh actions like US regulators took against the crypto mixer Tornado Cash. The United States Department of Justice was banned within the region alleging its involvement in laundering billions of dollars worth of stolen assets.
The action of Dapper received mixed reactions from the community where some were seen welcoming the decisions while others criticized the same. For instance, some argued that banning the accounts is an act of putting censorship on decentralized tech like blockchain. The user stated that freezing of accounts would be taken as actively censoring an industry which was founded on the basis of censorship resistance.
However, in response another user—claiming to be an employee at Dapper Labs—said the firm was said to take the actions against the Russian accounts. The firm had its hand tied within the situation, he added.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/10/10/eus-recent-sanctions-made-dapper-labs-bannin-russian-crypto-accounts/