Non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea barred Iranians from its platform, adding to concerns surrounding decentralisation in digital assets.
The US NFT platform followed US sanctions, it said, which states American companies can’t provide countries on the sanction list with goods or services.
“Our Terms of Service explicitly prohibit sanctioned users or users in sanctioned territories from using our services,” an OpenSea spokesperson said.
Iran, Russia, Syria, and North Korea were some of the most notable countries on the list.
This sparked debate on whether blockchain-based firms are adequately decentralised, Cointelegraph said, with MetaMask also sanctioning Iran.
OpenSea is the world’s largest NFT platform, with over US$22bn of sales since its launch in December 2017.
Elsewhere, several crypto exchanges blacklisted sanctioned Russian individuals and organisations to prevent them from crypto trading.
Binance said it refused to ban accounts of innocent Russians, though.