Privacy coins like Monero (XMR) and ZCash (ZEC) have faced widespread delistings in 2024, with 60 removals from exchanges, the highest since 2021, due to increasing regulatory pressure.
Amid the strong regulatory actions in 2024, privacy coins like Monero XMR $301.8 24h volatility: 4.9% Market cap: $5.57 B Vol. 24h: $116.03 M , ZCash ZEC $51.45 24h volatility: 0.5% Market cap: $837.14 M Vol. 24h: $111.76 M , and others have faced the highest delisting from crypto exchanges. As per the report from Kaiko, privacy tokens saw 60 delistings this year so far, the highest since 2021.
The report names some of the popular and top privacy tokens like Monero (XMR), ZCash (ZEC), Dash DASH $23.94 24h volatility: 0.3% Market cap: $296.94 M Vol. 24h: $22.97 M , Mask MASK $1.33 24h volatility: 4.8% Market cap: $133.43 M Vol. 24h: $20.71 M , Decred DCR $17.15 24h volatility: 2.0% Market cap: $291.69 M Vol. 24h: $9.33 M , and Rose ROSE $0.0303 24h volatility: 6.3% Market cap: $224.65 M Vol. 24h: $18.76 M . Monero’s XMR tokens faced the biggest brunt of delistings, surging by a staggering 6x, while the DASH token experienced the second-highest number of delistings.
Earlier this month, crypto exchange Kraken delisted Monero’s XMR coin in order to meet the European regulatory requirements. “We did not take this decision lightly and remain committed to providing our European clients with an exceptional trading experience,” the exchange stated. Other popular exchanges like Binance have also delisted XMR citing regulatory concerns.
The Kaiko report notes that these delistings have been primarily due to the regulatory pressure in different jurisdictions over the past few years. Furthermore, the report from Chainalysis also shows that Japan banned the trading of privacy coins back in 2018. Later, in the year 2020, regulators in South Korea and Australia also followed this move while building pressure on the exchanges to remove them.
Other major jurisdictions that have banned privacy tokens include the UAE, which introduced its crypto regulations last year, and the EU, which enacted the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation.
Crypto Exchanges Delisting Privacy Coins
Irrespective of the jurisdiction, crypto exchanges have been delisting the privacy coins to avoid any further regulatory crackdown. Crypto exchange OKX delisted its privacy token trading pairs in January, following Huobi, which began removing them in September 2022. Both exchanges cited regulatory pressure as the key reason for their decisions.
The Kaiko report noted that crypto platforms with less regulatory oversight, such as Poloniex and Yobit, have absorbed a portion of the trading volume for privacy tokens. These two exchanges now account for nearly 40% of the trading volume for top privacy tokens, a significant increase from 18% in 2021.
The report also highlighted that demand for these tokens on these platforms is so high that it frequently surpasses available order book liquidity.
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