LocalMonero, a prominent peer-to-peer trading platform for Monero (XMR), has announced that it will be shutting down as of May 7, 2024. This decision was influenced by a combination of internal and external factors and ended seven years of Monero efforts. A platform that has served as the foundation of the Monero community.
TLDR
- LocalMonero, the Monero (XMR) peer-to-peer trading platform, has announced that it will be shutting down on May 7, 2024 due to internal and external factors.
- The platform will immediately disable new registrations and advertising, cease trading by May 14th, and shut down completely by November 7th.
- Despite the closure, the LocalMonero team remains optimistic about Monero's future, pointing to upcoming decentralized exchanges and privacy updates.
- The closure is seen as another setback for privacy coins and services following Kraken's end of support for Monero and legal action against privacy-centric projects.
- Monero (XMR) continues to trade near $129.08, showing resilience amid the challenges faced by privacy-focused crypto services.
The closure of LocalMonero was not a sudden event, but a carefully planned six-month closure process. As of May 7th, all new registrations and advertising postings have been suspended, and new transactions will be suspended from May 14th.
The platform will be permanently shut down on November 7th, giving users enough time to complete or cancel their trades and get their funds back from their arbitrated bond wallets.
Despite the closure, the LocalMonero team remains optimistic about the future of Monero.
They expressed confidence in the upcoming launch of decentralized exchanges like Haveno and Serai, the addition of the Full Blockchain Anonymous Set (FCMP) to replace Ring 16, and the ongoing rapid development of the Monero protocol. Masu.
This optimism reflects the Monero community's resilience and adaptability in the face of adversity.
Privacy coins are under scrutiny
The closure of LocalMonero is not an isolated incident, but rather part of a broader trend of challenges facing privacy-focused crypto services.
Regulatory pressure has increased in recent months, with Kraken ending Monero support for customers in Ireland and Belgium and legal action being taken against privacy-centric projects like Tornado Cash.
The crackdown on privacy coins and services also led to the closure of other platforms such as Wasabi CoinJoin and Trezor Coinjoin.
Monero's resilience
Despite the setbacks faced by privacy coins and services, Monero (XMR) has shown remarkable resilience. At the time of writing, XMR is trading around $129.08, down 1% daily.
Although Privacy Coin is still 75% below its all-time high of $517.62, it has achieved a staggering 60,383.51% increase from its all-time low.
