MoonPay, a leading cryptocurrency payment service provider, has ceased operations in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus.
On March 10th, the MoonPay team notified all clients that, as a result of recent events in Eastern Europe, they had ceased operations in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus and would no longer be dealing with customers having physical addresses in those countries.
They highlighted in an explanation of their recent decision that it was hard for them to continue operating in these places while adhering to the existing sanctions imposed by governments throughout the globe, including the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the United States.
MoonPay’s fiat-to-crypto onramp, founded less than three years ago, powers over 250 wallets, websites, and services in more than 160 countries and has handled over $2 billion in transactions to date. The business reached a $3.4 billion value in November 2021, after a $555 million Series A investment deal headed by Tiger Global Management.
The user-friendly payments infrastructure contributes to the integration of crypto and conventional finance by enabling markets like as OpenSea, the biggest NFT platform, to provide quick and secure means to purchase and sell digital assets.
MoonPay’s NFT Checkout, which is available to any brand, creator, or marketplace, defines tokens as ‘digital products,’ resulting in multiples greater card acceptance rates than typical crypto on-ramps. With other payment providers following suit, Moonpay’s success as a payment option for NFT markets is due to its simplicity of use.
While many cryptocurrency exchanges are fighting government attempts to exclude Russian users from their platforms, the penalties are beginning to have an impact on both sides of the battle. Coinbase, which has openly defended all of its users against penalties, still froze 25,000 wallet addresses Monday it thinks are associated with Russian persons and businesses involved in illicit behaviour.
Non-US exchanges like as Binance and FTX have argued that safeguarding Russians’ access to crypto is critical, given their increasing dependence on digital assets as the ruble falls under the weight of US and European sanctions.
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