Solana: Orca DEX blocks access to US users

Lockdowns in the USA – There decentralized finance (DeFi) wishes to offer a financial ecosystem that is open and accessible to all. However, regulators are putting a spoke in the wheel and pushing certain protocols to have to sort out the entry. This is particularly the case of Orca, which has just blocked its site to American users.

Blocking US users on Orca

orcas is a decentralized exchange protocol hosted on the Solana blockchain. On March 16, he announced an unexpected decision: from March 31, THE US users will no longer be able to transact on the Orca website.

This decision was announced through a notification on the official site of the protocol.

“Orca will add the United States to the regions and countries that have restricted trading access on orca.so. This will be effective March 31, 2023. This will not impact the ability of US users to interact directly with the smart contract. Nor on their ability to provide liquidity through orca.so. »

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Blocked interface, but not smart contracts

However, this restriction does not concerns only the Orca web interface. Therefore, she will not affect the ability of US users to interact directly with the smart contracts of Orca.

Additionally, the protocol stated that US users will be able to continue providing liquidity through the official site.

Those who wish to continue interacting with Orca’s smart contracts will be able to do so using other interfaces. For example, that of Jupiter, which uses Orca as a source of liquidity for its swap aggregator service.

Decentralized, but not immune to regulators

Although decentralized exchanges generally do not have “ back-end » centralized, some have chosen to block US users For avoid problemswith the country’s regulators.

Notable examples include Uniswap. Uniswap undertook to block access to its interface to certain wallets in April 2022 .

In many cases, users have succeeded in bypass these geo-restrictions using a vpnto hide their IP address or by connecting directly to the smart contract.

For its part, Orca’s decision to block access to US users is a reminder that even decentralized exchanges are not not totally immune to regulators. Ecosystem players will need to continue to grope their way through the ever-changing regulatory environment.

In the United States, the regulation of cryptocurrencies is at the center of attention. So much so that the institutions themselves are unable to agree. Thus, theCFTC and SEC fail to agree on the status of Ethereum.

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