Kraken, a cryptocurrency exchange, has made an announcement stating that it will gradually withdraw support for the privacy token Monero (XMR) for its customers in Ireland and Belgium. Starting from May 10, Kraken will suspend trading and deposits for XMR, and all margin trading positions must be closed before this deadline. Failure to do so will result in Kraken automatically closing these positions. Furthermore, on June 10, the exchange plans to fully delist Monero from its platform, meaning that withdrawals for XMR tokens will be halted for users in Ireland and Belgium. Kraken has clarified that any remaining XMR tokens in user accounts after the deadline will be automatically converted into Bitcoin (BTC).
This decision by Kraken comes in response to recent regulations in the European Union that prohibit crypto asset service providers from offering accounts to anonymous users or supporting privacy-focused tokens like Monero. Interestingly, despite this news, the price of the Monero token remains relatively stable at around $132.35. CoinGecko reports that the token reached a 24-hour high of $136.59 and a weekly high of $139.15.
This is not the first time that Monero has faced delisting from major exchanges. In February, Binance also decided to delist Monero, causing the token’s price to decline. On February 6, the XMR token dropped from $165 to a five-month low of $136 on Binance. However, it quickly recovered the next day after reaching a low of $105.
Governments and financial regulators worldwide have been tightening regulations around privacy-focused tokens since 2018. Japan was the first to introduce a ban on anonymity-enhanced tokens, followed by South Korea’s financial watchdog in 2020. Australian exchanges also started delisting privacy tokens due to regulatory updates. Dubai joined the list on February 7, 2023, when it released guidelines prohibiting the issuance of anonymity-enhanced tokens and any virtual asset activities related to privacy coins.
In addition to Binance and Kraken, other exchanges such as Huobi and OKX have also delisted Monero and other privacy-focused digital assets. Huobi delisted Monero on September 19, 2022, in order to comply with global regulations. OKX fully delisted the token from its trading platform on January 5, stating that this decision was made based on user feedback and to maintain a strong spot trading environment.
Overall, these developments in the cryptocurrency market have sparked discussions about the future of decentralized finance (DeFi), with the founder of Synthetix expressing the view that it is DeFi that needs to be reevaluated, not the market itself.