The world’s largest non-fungible token (NFT) market has restricted its platform’s access to Iranian users.
OpenSea, the world's largest NFT market, blocks users whose countries are on the US sanctions list. These countries include Iran, North Korea, Syria and most recently Russia.
The US-based NFT market has begun the process of cutting off Iranian users’ access to the platform. The move has angered activists in the field and sparked new discussions about decentralization in the field of currencies and digital assets, the news portal Arz Digital reported.
Last Thursday, Iranian OpenSea users revealed on Twitter that their accounts had been deactivated or deleted without any prior warning.
Current US sanctions indicate that US companies are not allowed to offer goods or services to any user residing in the embargoed countries. OpenSea is an American company headquartered in New York.
The company’s recent move has sparked a debate over the extent to which blockchain-based companies and service providers are decentralized.
An OpenSea spokesman said they had the right to block users under the sanctions.
“Our Terms of Service explicitly state that we can block sanctioned users, or users residing in sanctioned areas. We do not in any way allow users or entities that are sanctioned and residents of sanctioned countries to use our services. If we find users who are violating our sanctions policy, we will immediately close the accounts associated with them,” the spokesman said.
OpenSea, saw $5 billion in trading volume in January and recently reached $13.3 billion
OpenSea has hosted NFTs that have sold more than $22 billion since its start.
Digital currencies and digital assets such as NFTs continue to be increasingly monitored by the US government. As sanctions against Russia intensify, so will their surveillance.
This is not the first time the digital currency industry has grappled with the complexities of international sanctions.
There were reports that the MetaMask wallet had also cracked down on its users under the pretext of the sanctions.
Apparently, due to a mistake, some Venezuelan users had been denied access to Metamask for some time. Later, it issued a statement in its Twitter account that these users were accidentally denied access to their Metamask wallet and that the issue has now been resolved.
MetaMask is a software cryptocurrency wallet used to interact with the Ethereum blockchain. It allows users to access their Ethereum wallet through a browser extension or mobile app, which can then be used to interact with decentralized applications.
Bita, 1st Iranian NFT Platform
Bita, the first Iranian non-fungible token issuance platform, was unveiled on Jan. 31 by Kuknos at the Museum of Communications.
Addressing the Bita unveiling ceremony, Kuknos Chairman Valiollah Fatemi outlined the company's goals by saying, "Kuknos has been pursuing the goal of gaining experience in the field of digital technologies, especially blockchain, for the past three years. Kuknos has been able to experiment with a variety of blockchain applications over the years."
Bita is a platform for digital certification in the form of NFT for artistic and non-artistic works, the news portal of Way2pay.ir reported.
Fatemi noted that NFTs have become very popular and Kuknos has emerged as the first provider of token issuance in Iran.
“Iran's performance in the field of technology has always been slower than other countries and access to the latest technologies has been like a dream for many active businesses. For this reason, I'm really proud to be in the blockchain today, especially NFT. The concept of NFT has not yet been finalized and is expanding,” he said.
"Artists are now more focused on tokenizing their assets than the players of other fields. We hope that Bita can help provide artists a safe platform."
According to the Kuknos chief, the more Bita’s international access increases, the more the platform’s ecosystem grows and the true value of assets is determined more accurately.
“While works of no artistic value are sold for millions of dollars, the most exquisite works by Iranian artists are traded at low prices in galleries. By increasing the assets’ international access, we introduce the value of our assets to the world and shape the digital economy’s ecosystem," he added.
Stressing that shaping a digital economy is one of the main programs of the country, Fatemi said the current restrictions must be overcome with the help of technology.
“The Bita system is supported by the parliament,” Mohammad Reza Dashti Ardakani, the head of Majlis Tourism and Cultural Heritage Fraction, said during the inauguration ceremony.
Some of the platform’s features and advantages outlined in the ceremony are as follows: delivery of works of art (possibility of delivering works to warehouses approved by the system to sell the work at auctions), actual backing (authentic digital signature of the certifiers on the digital certificate of the work), a digital certificate of artwork (issuance of NFTs as an inviolable certificate), beta auction (NFT sale of works along with the original work in the Bita auction market) and security (Bita tokens meet all NFT standards).
