Yuga Labs closed access to ApeCoin staking for US and Canadian citizens

Article Reading Time:
2 minutes.

Yuga Labs announced that it is forced to block access to ApeCoin staking for users from North America due to the requirements of officials.

According to a statement from Yuga Labs, users fromThe USA and Canada are prohibited from staking APEs, which serve as internal tokens of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) ecosystem. The service is also not available for Syria, Iran, Cuba, Russia, Crimea, as well as the Donetsk and Lugansk republics. The developers of ApeCoin explained that the regulatory environment leaves them no choice but to geographically block the service in many regions. ApeCoin Developers
noted on Twitter that even with limited access to the service, smart contracts are technically available to all users:

“We want to remind the community that one of theThe benefits of decentralized finance are the ability of each person to interact with smart contracts or develop solutions that will allow other users to do this.”

Denying access to APE staking for residentsNorth America may be related to a recent investigation initiated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The regulator suspects the company of violating federal laws and is studying whether BAYC and ApeCoin tokens can be considered securities. APE staking makes Yuga Labs dependent on American regulators, who suppress the activities of cryptocurrency companies offering such services.

In September, regulators in eight statesThe US has demanded that cryptocurrency lender Nexo stop promoting interest-bearing cryptocurrency products, deeming them unregistered securities. Last year, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase was also forced to cancel the launch of a high-yield product for the USDC stablecoin due to an SEC ban.