MetaMask users in Venezuela became locked out of their wallets following the US’s new sanctions set on parts of Ukraine. With many blocked from their wallets, MetaMask users became confused. As a result, social media became filled with protests from blocked users when a “reconfiguring of internal settings” to comply with new sanctions resulted in locked accounts.
Metamask Users Blocked?
Ethereum’s vision to become a universal world computer and decentralized ecosystem is a beautiful dream. Yet, the harsh truth is that entities involved with Ethereum still have to comply with rules set by the countries governing them. Infura’s software blocked Venezuela MetaMask users while complying with new sanctions. Infura is software that hosts Ethereum nodes and operates blockchain infrastructure on a company’s behalf.
“Infura closely monitors changes to US sanctions programs announced by the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Setting its internal controls to comply with the law. Currently, those regions are Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, and the Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. Infura’s compliance with the law while required does not reflect the service’s views on any public policy issue.” – Spokesperson for ConsenSys
Heavy worldwide sanctions enforced on Russia for the attack on Ukraine have frozen billions of dollars. As the army and volunteers defend Ukraine, “sanction season” is in full swing. However, innocent viewers remain unintentionally hurt in the financial crossfire.
“In changing some configurations as a result of the new sanctions directives from the United States and other jurisdictions mistakenly configured the settings more broadly than they needed to be,” they wrote. “This was our oversight, and we are grateful that it was pointed out to us. Once we determined what happened, we were able to fix the problem, and service has been restored.” – Infura
While the lockout was a simple mistake, many MetaMask users feel a centralized pull on the chain. Unfortunately, true decentralization is a tricky task to achieve, and while we are better off than we were…we still aren’t quite there.
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