Some of our exchange partners may restrict access to their service based on your location, or where they believe you are located. For example, Shapeshift doesn’t serve the states of Washington or New York, as well as a handful of OFAC embargoed countries.
Geolocation is based on your IP address which is an imperfect measure to determine someone’s location. For instance, our office is San Diego, CA and several staff members cannot use Shapeshift when using T-Mobile cell service. That’s because all T-Mobile customers have Washington state IP addresses, where the T-Mobile headquarters is located.
If you are physically in a supported location, the easiest workaround is to connect to a WiFi network. Our ISP correctly provides our office with a California IP address therefore we are able to use Shapeshift.
Our long term goal is to work with enough exchange partners so that there is always an opportunity to complete swaps regardless of location.