--- title: "The US Government Says These NFTs Are Now Illegal" description: "The US government's Office of Foreign Assets Control declaring this week that numerous NFTs, and even one entire exchange, are now verboten." date: "2021-11-11" modified: "2021-11-11" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/us-government-nfts-illegal" categories: - "Blockchain" - "Future Society" - "NFTs" tags: - "chatex" - "nfts" - "the digest" --- # The US Government Says These NFTs Are Now Illegal ![The US government's Office of Foreign Assets Control declaring this week that numerous NFTs, and even one entire exchange, are now verboten.]() *Faceless Computer Hacker \Image: Getty\* ## Forbidden NFT Non-fungible tokens, better known as NFTs, have rocked the worlds of both [blockchain]() and [art]() this year, while generating endless new debates about everything from [money laundering]() and [fraud]() to [what it *really* means to "own" a digital asset](). And now the drama's getting even deeper, with the US government's Office of Foreign Assets Control declaring this week that numerous NFTs, and even one entire exchange, are now verboten. The [list of banned stuff](), [first spotted by blockchain startup Elliptic]() and [highlighted by *Vice's Motherboard*](), include a Latvian NFT marketplace called Chatex as well as dozens of specific works of digital art — including, intriguingly, some assets listed on a US-based exchange. In other words, the fracas is a collision of art world drama, federal government drama, blockchain drama and international sanctions drama — a spicy meatball of legal, technical and financial shenanigans that could shed light on the most explosive aspects of NFT culture we're likely to see moving forward. ## Sea Legs Basically, it sounds like [the feds think Chatex]() was using digital asset sales to launder money from ransomware and darknet shenanigans. The most interesting part of the saga, though, is arguably that the outlawed NFTs included ones listed on the US-based exchange OpenSea — though the site did remove the listings after *Motherboard* reached out about the issue. "We automatically block addresses on the U.S. sanctions list from buying, selling, or transferring on OpenSea," an OpenSea spokesperson told *Motherboard* in a statement. "Nobody was able to transact with these NFTs once the addresses were added to the sanctions list. As an additional measure, the items and accounts are no longer visible on OpenSea." **More on NFTs:** [*12-Year-Old Earns $400,000 Selling NFTs to Idiots*]() ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()