Binance backtracks on delisting privacy coins in some EU nations

The exchange originally planned to restrict access to some privacy coins in France, Spain, Italy and Poland

June 26, 2023 12:34 pm

BERMIX STUDIO/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

Binance has reversed its decision in May to delist so-called privacy coins in certain EU nations, according to a company statement provided to Blockworks.

The world’s largest crypto exchange originally planned to restrict access to 12 of these tokens to customers in France, Spain, Italy and Poland. It included dash (DASH), monero (XMR), zcash (ZEC), and others.

Binance told Blockworks that in light of EU regulatory requirements, it has reevaluated its stance on privacy coins.

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“After carefully considering feedback from our community and several projects, we have revised how we classify privacy coins on our platform to comply with EU wide regulatory requirements,” the statement read.

“As a crypto exchange with registrations in different EU jurisdictions, we are obliged to follow EU regulations that require exchanges to be able to monitor transactions for coins listed on our platform.”

Binance doing total 180s when it comes to its token listings has become somewhat of a pattern.

For example, Binance on June 7 announced it was scrapping dozens of tether (USDT) trading pairs from its advanced trading platform. Later that same day, Binance walked back that decision.

The news of Binance retaining privacy coins comes months after Huobi Global delisted seven of them, also including monero, dash and zcash. Other crypto exchanges have complicated relationships with privacy coins.

In the US, users can buy monero on Kraken but not on Coinbase, which never listed the token because regulators would be “up in arms,” according to CEO Brian Armstrong in 2020. However, Coinbase and Kraken both support Zcash, according to CoinGecko.

Asian nations have been notoriously tough on privacy coins, with Japan and South Korea banning them outright.

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