dYdX reportedly blocking users with Russian IP addresses

DeFi trading app dYdX is reportedly geoblocking Russian users, according to a screenshot posted by Yearn developer banteg on Monday, as DeFi continues to move away from its permissionless ideals.

The notice stated that the user was trading from a region that violated the platform’s terms of use and had previously been restricted.

Users from Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Myanmar, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea are not permitted to use dYdX, as per the platform’s terms of use.

Russia is not specifically mentioned but the document does say that these service restrictions apply to other jurisdictions currently sanctioned by the US government.

The platform’s terms of use also warn against deploying virtual private networks (VPNs) to circumvent the restrictions.

As a hybrid exchange — partly centralized and decentralized — the smart contract backend is also centralized. This means that traders unable to use the app frontend cannot circumvent these restrictions by interacting with the protocol’s smart contracts directly.

dYdX is hardly the first DeFi protocol to block users from specific countries. In March, Matcha, a DEX aggregator platform, began blocking users from Russia.

1inch, another DEX aggregator, and dYdX do not permit users from the US. This policy has meant that US-based traders have not received high-value airdrops from these platforms in the past.

Geoblocking certain jurisdictions is not the only DeFi-related censorship that exists today. Uniswap has begun blocking some crypto wallets in partnership with blockchain forensics outfit TRM Labs. These wallets have, however, been linked with illegal activities like human trafficking, terrorism financing, and child sexual abuse among other things, according to Uniswap.

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