The website warned users to make rapid withdrawals of money since it will stop trading for clients from Venezuela on July 31 and entirely limit all accounts starting on September 30.
Due to sanctions put in place by the US government, cryptocurrency trading platform Uphold announced that it would stop providing services for users in Venezuela.
Uphold announced on Thursday that it will leave Venezuela with great reluctance due to the growing difficulty of adhering to American sanctions. The platform recommended users remove their money as soon as possible, warning that it would stop trading for clients with addresses in Venezuela on July 31 and completely block all accounts starting on September 30.
Most of the sanctions that the U.S. government currently imposes on entities with Venezuelan addresses came into force in August 2019, when the previous administration banned transactions with American people and businesses while also directing the freezing of all Venezuelan government assets in the country. President Joe Biden lifted some of the sanctions in May, focusing on limitations on American energy corporations like Chevron.
The Venezuelan government purportedly used cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to circumvent sanctions in some situations before several of these economic initiatives. According to blockchain analytics company Chainalysis, the nation was also one of the largest leaders in crypto peer-to-peer transactions in 2021.
