Starting from the 9th of March, PancakeSwap will block users from IP addresses of blacklisted countries. These countries are Cuba, Iran, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Crimea, Syria, Sudan, Belarus, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Such an announcement was made public by CyptoClub through Twitter. The Persian-based website tweeted a screenshot of PancakeSwap stating that users from the countries mentioned above will not be able to use the platform from March.
📌صرافی غیرمتمرکز از تاریخ ۹ مارچ به کاربران ایرانی خدمات نخواهد داد! pic.twitter.com/niUBaaNHox
— CryptoClub | کریپتوکلاب (@irCryptoClub) February 10, 2022
Although the official PancakeSwap keeps showing that popup, there is no official announcement from their team regarding such a ban. The list of the countries that PancakeSwap plans to block comprises countries that the U.S. often puts sanctions on. Such a move is a characteristic of centralized exchanges, not decentralized exchanges. Understanding that this DEX operates on the Binance Smart Chain, a very centralized exchange, such a decision doesn’t come as a surprise. For sure, we hope that other decentralized exchanges don’t follow the footsteps of PancakeSwap.
Some people claim that PancakeSwap did this to be favored by the U.S. as the only legitimate DEX nationwide. However, even if that was the reason, restricting some countries won’t make a platform better in any way. We cannot say whether such a claim is true or not, though.
What is PancakeSwap?
There are two main types of cryptocurrency exchanges: centralized exchanges (CEXs) and decentralized exchanges (DEXs). PancakeSwap is one of the leading decentralized exchanges, and it operates on the Binance Smart Chain. Unlike traditional exchanges, this one uses an Automated Market Maker.
Similar to other DEXs, PancakeSwap provides its users with numerous features. These features include Swapping, Yield Farming, Liquidity Pools, Initial Farm Offerings, NFT profile pictures, and many more.
PancakeSwap is one of the most interesting DEXs out there because of its non-fungible token (NFT) collectibles, lottery feature, and prediction feature. For example, people can play in its lottery by purchasing a ticket, similar to a real-life lottery. Moreover, you can win CAKE tokens by predicting its price. As a result, it has some of the highest trading volumes in the market right now.