Crypto wallet Abra to start restricting major services in America

American crypto traders have been in quite a muddle this year as a number of exchanges have started restricting them to trade certain cryptocurrencies due to strict regulations in the country. With regulatory bodies still unsure how they want to handle the crypto situation major crypto exchanges are shutting their doors to the American trader.

Binance Dex, developed by major cryptocurrency exchange Binance has blocked website access for US-based traders. Bittrex, one of the most popular crypto exchanges have barred the American traders from trading cryptocurrencies. The regulatory issues have now started affecting crypto wallets as well. Just recently, California- based crypto wallet service Abra posted a blog on July 25 which stated that they will be restricting some services for American users starting this august.

Certain altcoins will be out of reach for Americans

According to the blog post, Abra will supposedly be making some system modifications revolving around their smart contract-based synthetic assets. As a result of this, they will be migrating any synthetic assets to native wallet solution. Any token other than Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash will be affected by this. During the migration process majority of the services would still be functional but some assets will be unavailable to be used for a few minutes until the migration process is completed.

Some services would, however, be directly impacted, this includes restriction from holding five different cryptocurrencies namely QTUM, Bitcoin Gold, EOS, OmiseGO, and Status. Users holding positions in these assets are advised to either exchange or withdraw their investments from Abra by 11:59 PM EST on August 29, 2019. Following this date, all remaining balances in any of the said assets will be converted to Bitcoin in the app.

New York takes a big hit

The blog also stated that after August 29, 2019, New-York based users will only be able to hold positions in Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. Apart from this, NY based users will also be barred from using bank ACH, Wire or American express card for deposit/withdraw after August 29^th, 2019.

No luck until proper regulation is in place

The blog concluded saying that the above-mentioned changes will only be impacting US residents, international users will not be affected by any of the changes and can continue to use the application with its full functionality after the migration. The strict regulatory systems are affecting both consumers and businesses in America. Until the regulatory bodies come up with a proper set of rules specifically for cryptocurrencies, it will be difficult for both sides to deal with anything crypto-related.