Abra App is Restricting its Services for U.S. Customers
- California-based crypto investment app Abra will be restricting its U.S. customers from holding some cryptocurrencies, namely EOS, QTUM, BTG, OMG, and SNT.
- New Yorkers will no longer be able to use ACH transfers, as well as wire or American express for deposits and withdrawals after Aug 29.
California-based crypto investment app Abra will be restricting some of its services for its U.S.-based customers starting from August, the company announced in a blog post on July 25.
According to the blog post, the system modifications will be made because of the continued regulatory uncertainty in the United States. Abra will be migrating its smart contract-based synthetic assets to a native wallet solution, with “synthetic assets” being defined as anything other than Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). The upcoming changes will make a number of cryptocurrencies unavailable for American users.
This migration will have an impact on U.S. customers, by restricting them from holding several cryptocurrencies, namely EOS, QTUM, BTG, OMG, and SNT. The blog post advises U.S. Abra users to either exchange or withrdraw their positions in these crypto assets before August 29, because after that date, any remaining balances will be automatically converted to Bitcoin in the app.
Additionally, New York residents will only be able to hold BTC, ETH, LTC, and BCH on their Abra app after August 29. The company has also advised New Yorkers to either exchange or withdraw their positions in any synthetic holdings before that date, as they too will be converted automatically to Bitcoin after that date.
The blog post also revealed that New Yorkers will no longer be able to use some of their options for deposits and withdrawals after August 29. Specifically, they will no longer be able to use ACH transfers, as well as wire or American express.
Abra is expecting the migration process to be seamless for U.S. users, and has said that these changes will not affect its users outside of the States. Even after the changes are made, U.S. users will still continue to hold their private keys for BTC, BCH, LTC and ETH, the firm has said.
This is not the first time that U.S. citizens have faced restrictions because of regulations. Last month Binance updated its terms and services to state that it is no longer able to “provide services to any U.S. person”. However, the exchange also announced that it will be launching a separate, fully regulated fiat to crypto platform for the U.S. market – Binance.us.
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