ApeCoin Geoblocks North American Stakers

The United States was added to the list of regions geo-blocked from using an upcoming Apecoin staking service. 

Geo-Blocking Implemented Across North America

Apecoin holders based in the United States would lose an opportunity of winning staking rewards due to the geo-block imposed on North America by the website. The site is being built by the blockchain infrastructure company Horizen Labs, which disclosed information about the geo-blocking in a Twitter update. 

The site ApeStake.io is being developed on behalf of the ApeCoin DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) and, according to the update from Horizen Labs, will be geo-blocked from the North American countries of the United States and Canada. The other countries and regions also on the list are North Korea, Syria, Iran, Cuba, Russia and Russia-controlled regions of Ukraine, Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk. 

A section of the update reads,

“We are aware that geoblocking some users in North America is inconvenient for many members of the ApeCoin community. Unfortunately, in today’s regulatory environment, we had no good alternative.”

SEC Investigating Yuga Labs

Crypto staking refers to the process of locking up one’s crypto assets or digital coins to secure a certain blockchain network and, in turn, receiving rewards in terms of network fees and subsidies or a periodic yield. However, securities regulators in the United States have been targeting such products and have come down hard on other crypto lending platforms providing simar services. The decision by ApeCoin to implement geo-blocking across the U.S. came soon after the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) launched a probe into ApeCoin creator Yuga Labs in October. As with Ripple and XRP, the SEC is investigating if the popular NFTs under the Yuga Labs banner act more like securities and are subsequently flouting federal laws. 

Loopholes To Access APE Staking

Although the website will act as an interface to interact with the Ethereum-based open-source smart contract, there will be other ways to work around the geo-block. Several other exchanges and DeFi platforms are also designing similar interfaces to allow users from geo-blocked locations to stake APE. Another alternative for users from geo-blocked locations is to interact directly with the smart contract. 

According to the ApeCoin team, 

“We want to remind the community that one of the benefits of decentralized finance is that anybody can interact with a smart contract, or develop clients and interfaces that allow users to interact with smart contracts.”

Furthermore, the use of VPN is also quite popular among the crypto community and can be used in this instance to hide their IP addresses. 

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.