Privacy coins removed from exchanges in South Korea
Cryptocurrency exchange OKex will remove privacy coins from its platform. They do this because of government regulations. Currencies like Monero, Horizen, Dash and Zcash are among the cryptocurrencies to lose their trading pairs on the exchange. The privacy-oriented coins will be removed from OKex starting from October 10th.
In a statement to local media outlet Viva100 the exchange explained that these coins ‘violate the regulations and laws of government agencies and major institutions’. The move by OKex is the result of an international crackdown on cryptocurrencies by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The FATF wants all exchanges to be able to know the sender and receiver of a transaction.
OKex is not the first cryptocurrency exchange to delist privacy coins. Earlier this month Upbit announced it would remove Dash and Monero from its exchange. Coincidental or not, Coinbase UK removed Monero. However, the British branch of Coinbase didn’t comment on the matter. Without a doubt, these delistings are a warning call for the rest of the world. Regulations and privacy don’t go well together.
Dark days for privacy coins
Even before the FATF was active into the regulation of cryptocurrencies and ban of privacy coins, the Japanese exchange Coincheck removed four privacy-oriented coins. This happened in 2018, and was soon followed by a countrywide ban on privacy currencies.
The future looks dark for the presence of privacy coins on exchanges. Cryptocurrency exchange Binance is opening an United States branch. Binance US will offer a considerable smaller list of coins, and privacy coins like monero (XMR), dash (DASH) and zcash (ZEC) are missing. Coinbase Pro recently added Dash to its offering, but this might be turned around at any given moment of course.
Monero is the biggest privacy coin on the market with a market cap of more than 1.2 billion dollars. This makes monero that 10th biggest coin. Dash, which only has optional privacy-functions, is 16th with 830 million dollars, while Zcash is at 28th with 365 million dollars.
Originally published at NEDEROB.
