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Australian Exchanges Are Delisting Privacy Coins as They Succumb to Regulatory Pressure

4y ago
bullish:

10

bearish:

0

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Key highlights:

  • CoinSpot and Swiftx, two Australian cryptocurrency exchanges are going to delist privacy coins, including Monero (XMR), Bytecoin (BCN) and ZCoin (XZC)
  • At the same time CoinSpot and Coinjar have announced a partnership with the blockchain analytics company Chainalysis to increase compliance
  • Komodo (KMD) had also been planned for delisting, even though the project has disabled the coin's privacy feature a long time ago

Due to regulatory pressure, more and more cryptocurrency exchanges are delisting privacy coins. Most recently, CoinSpot and Swiftx, two Australian cryptocurrency exchanges, have announced that several privacy coins will cease to trade on their platforms starting August 31. 

“An important technology for crypto, but a bad investment”

In an August 24 Tweet, YouTuber Alex Saunders called privacy coins “a bad investment”, while highlighting the importance of their contribution to the cryptocurrency space at the same time.

Attached to his tweet is a screenchot, of what appears to be an official announcement about the forthcoming delisting of several privacy-focused coins from CoinSpot exchange. Furthermore, according to another Twitter user, CoinSpot in not the only Australian exchange that is set to delist Monero, Bytecoin, ZCoin, and the like, as Swiftx is planning to take make the same move.

CoinSpot’s representative confirmed the delisting

The news regarding the delisting of some privacy-focused coins has since been confirmed by a CoinSpot’s customer support employee, who also alluded the reasons behind this tough decision. The representative wrote:

“Since we began operating in 2013, we have faced many instances in which pressure from external institutions have attempted to stifle or restrict our business. In each of these instances we have always worked hard to coordinate the best possible outcome for our members. We do not take these decisions lightly as we do believe that cryptocurrency trading services should be as accessible as possible to all Australians.”

The CoinSpot’s customer support also reassured users that their Monero, Bytecoin and ZCoin holdings will not be automatically converted to another asset, leaving holders the option to move their coins to another wallet or exchange.

The delisting of coins from Swiftx has yet to be confirmed

The news about the delisting comes amidst CoinSpot’s increased efforts to better comply with the regulatory framework. The popular Australian exchange and another exchange from the land down under, Coinjar, have partnered with the crypto analytics firm Chainalysis on August 24. The aim of both partnerships is to ensure better regulatory compliance.

Komodo Token caught up in the privacy coin crackdown by mistake

The Komodo developer team was surprised to find out that their KMD token was set for delisting from the CoinSpot exchange. Although the coin had offered privacy technology in the past, the privacy feature in question has been disabled a long time ago. CTO of Komodo Kadan Stadelmann, explained:

“Komodo does not have the privacy feature enabled for a long time. We have a legal opinion backing this claim. So, although the Komodo Platform does offer privacy tech, the Komodo Token (KMD) itself does not offer privacy technology.”

After the confusion has been resolved, CoinSpot exchange stated that it will not be delisting KMD.

If more regulators apply pressure to exchanges regarding the offering of identity concealing coins, the users that would like to trade such coins will have to resort to decentralized exchanges (DEXs).

4y ago
bullish:

10

bearish:

0

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