OpenSea, one of the largest marketplaces for NFTs, has announced that it will ban digital artists based in countries subject to US sanctions. The news came in late December after his Cuba-based artist initiative, NFTcuba.ART, tweeted that OpenSea had deactivated its profile.
NFTcuba.ART says that while this is affecting local Cubans, it is having ripple effects for people of other nationalities who now have to suffer as part of US sanctions.
Regarding the matter, OpenSea said this was to comply with US sanctions laws.
Moreover, sanctions are more than just federal policy. Instead, they are a series of executive orders and federal regulations enshrined in federal law. Of course, this complicates them. Especially since Cuba has been on the sanctions list since Castro first seized power in the 60s.
OpenSea says the move is to ensure compliance, but Cuban artists say they weren’t told why their accounts were deleted. The fact is that Cuban expats, like many of the artists and artists who use the platform, were subject to these bans.
The US has imposed various sanctions on Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria and the Russian Federation, with the Russian Federation facing more sanctions through 2022 due to the ongoing Ukrainian aggression. .
