Bittrex Denies Access to Residents of North Korea, Iran, Crimea, Syria and Cuba

The new rules published last month and expected to come into force from March 9, will ban "citizen[s] or resident[s] of any state, country, territory or other jurisdiction that is embargoed by the United States" from accessing Las Vegas-based Bittrex platform and accessing its trading services.

The new terms reportedly raised much concern with Russian traders who increasingly voiced fears that the US-imposed sanctions following the Crimean crisis in 2014 would render it impossible for them to exploit the Bittrex platform.

Some users presumably received a confirmation, that the new terms would not apply to those under "economic sanctions."

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With Iran the situation is a bit more complicated.

There were reports back in 2017 that Bittrex had started closing Iranian accounts without prior notification. Yasser Ahmadi of Lioncomputer.ir complained thereafter, as reported by news.bitcoin.com, that the exchange’s technical service had failed to address the issue and Iranians were thus refused the opportunity of repatriating the funds from their accounts.

The newly announced list of restrictions is viewed upon in Iran as last year’s crackdown being eventually formalized and put on paper.

Ahmadi linked the problem to a reported rise of US imperial ambitions, oriented, as he put it, at a more profound monitoring of the cryptocurrency industry in pursuit of the US' own political interests.

"That is not what bitcoin and blockchain is about, it’s against the spirit of this system," he sorrowfully added.