Chris Black says that WalletConnect is punishing users for the sins of their tyrannical governments

A popular platform for connecting cryptocurrency wallets, for example, MetaMask and Safe, WalletConnect has blocked Russian and Ukrainian users. Previously, the company was criticized for violating the principles of decentralization.

Blocked users claim that “Error 1009: Access Denied” has been displayed on their screens for the past hours. WalletConnect CEO Pedro Gomez said that the blacklisting of clients from the Russian Federation and Ukraine was dictated by compliance with the instructions of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control.

WalletConnect receives complaints about blocking clients from other countries that are not included in the sanctions list. However, as the company states, the service did not block IP addresses from other countries.

This situation caused anger among members of the cryptocurrency community.

“WalletConnect, an application deeply embedded in the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem, is now blocking regular users from Ukraine, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Syria. They punish people for the sins of their tyrannical governments. This is Ethereum in 2023,” wrote renowned analyst Chris Black.

However, not all cryptocurrency services are hostile towards Russians. The Bybit crypto exchange noted an increase in the volume of liquidity in the currencies of countries that are most often preferred by immigrants from the Russian Federation for emigration. These are Armenia, Georgia, Türkiye.

Bybit has seen an increase in user numbers, especially in P2P trading. In May of this year, the daily sales volume of digital assets was $4.2–6.2 million, and in October it reached $9.3–12.6 million.

“Since 2022, the CIS+ countries have formed a single economic space. They are connected to each other by migration and trade flows. Crypto traders perceive this market as a single one,” said Yuri Brisov, partner at Digital & Analogue Partners.

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