Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Orca will block all U.S.-based users from trading using its web interface starting March 31, according to a notice posted on its official website on March 16.
According to DefiLlama, the exchange saw more than $634 million in trading volume in February and more than $46 million in total value locked in Solana smart contracts.
On March 16, a notice was added to the agreement’s website that read, “Orca will add the United States to the regions and countries restricted from trading on orca.so effective March 31, 2023.” The alert emphasized that the change “does not affect the ability of US users to directly interact with Orca’s smart contracts or SDK, or to provide liquidity through orca.so.”
Americans who directly interact with Orca smart contracts will not be affected by the change, the notice said. Orca is one of the DEXs Jupiter uses to source liquidity for its swap aggregation service, so Jupiter’s website may be an alternative for traders looking to interact with Orca smart contracts.
Cointelegraph attempted to contact Orca and Jupiter, but had not heard back by press time.
Centralized cryptocurrency exchanges that are not licensed in the U.S. often block U.S. users to avoid angering the country’s regulators, but most decentralized exchanges have not followed suit, with a few exceptions. Aggregator 1inch began blocking US users in September 2021 after stating in its terms of use that it did not allow US residents to use its interface. Binance DEX also banned US users in June 2019.
Unlike centralized exchanges, DEXs do not have a centralized "backend" or database controlled by developers. For this reason, many users find that in most cases they can circumvent geo-bans by hiding their IP address using a VPN or connecting directly to the blockchain through a developer tool such as Truffle or Hardhat.
