In November 2021, San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken removed the popular privacy coin Monero from its UK platform and took the privacy-focused cryptocurrency offline to comply with UK regulations. I made it.
However, the privacy coin's price fell by nearly 7% in the previous day following news that Monero lost its place on Kraken's European platform.
The American exchange delisted Monero from its platform, citing European regulations, and said: “Kraken has concluded that due to regulatory changes, Kraken has no choice but to delist Monero (XMR) in the European Economic Area (EEA).” said.
Kraken joins other crypto exchanges like Binance, which delisted Monero in February. Rival exchange Coinbase pre-emptively chose not to list the controversial privacy coin, similarly removing Monero competitor Zcash across the UK in 2019.
Jurisdictions around the world have sought to restrict the use of Monero for years, highlighting its role in illegal activities. In 2018, the Japanese government banned crypto exchanges from using Monero to fight crime and money laundering. Similarly, South Korea followed suit in 2021, but a year earlier Australia reportedly pressured crypto exchanges to launch Monero. Last year, the Emirate of Dubai similarly outlawed all privacy coins, including Monero, citing a lack of traceability.
Bitcoin transactions are public and you can see the sender, recipient, date, and amount associated with each transaction, but such information is typically removed from Monero. This privacy is achieved through Monero's reliance on ring signatures, which hide transaction information and the sender. Naturally, this caused concern for the government, prompting the US Internal Revenue Service to issue a $625,000 bounty to anyone who could violate the privacy of Monero coins.
