cryptocurrency exchange Binance Added “monitoring tag” to the list of virtual currencies including privacy coins Monero (XMR), Zcash (ZEC), Horizen (ZEN) and FIRO.
In a statement, Binance said tokens with surveillance tags “exhibit significantly higher volatility and risk compared to other listed tokens” and “no longer meet our listing criteria” and are at risk of being delisted from the exchange. said.
It added that tokens with surveillance tags will be subject to regular reviews. Criteria considered during the review include trading volume and liquidity, network stability and security, “contribution to a healthy and sustainable crypto ecosystem” and “response to regular due diligence requests”. is included.
Binance said in an announcement that to trade tokens with surveillance tags, users will have to pass a quiz to ensure they are “aware of the risks.” Other services related to tokens on the list (such as trading) are not affected.
Other tokens tagged with surveillance include Aragon (ANT), Keep3rV1 (KP3R), Mdex (MDX), MobileCoin (MOB), Reef (REEF), and Vai (VAI).
Firo co-founder Ruben Yap said: Decryption It said the surveillance tag was applied to Firo and other privacy coins “due to increased regulatory pressure, including compliance with MiCA, recent initiatives from US regulators, and Binance's settlement with the US Department of Justice.”
He said the project “has been in active discussions with Binance on this issue since September 2023,” adding that Exchange Addresses, a tool that the exchange claims will allow it to maintain regulatory compliance while respecting user privacy. He said the proposal to implement it was “accepted”. actively” by exchange.
Decryption has reached out to Binance for comment and will update this article if we hear back from the exchange.
Binance and Privacy Coin
cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum Using a fake wallet address. Because the ledger is public, a user's transactions can be tracked if the address can be tied to the user's identity. Privacy coins are a type of cryptocurrency that uses encryption technology to protect personal information from transactions and allows users to trade anonymously.
Binance is working on listing privacy coins on its platform in some regions. In May 2023, the exchange delisted several privacy coins in France, Italy, Poland, and Spain, including Monero, Zcash, and Horizen, and a month later withdrew trading in many affected cryptocurrencies. Then he announced.
However, many privacy coins, including Monero, are still affected by the ban, and Binance has announced an “obligation” to comply with local regulations that require exchanges to “be able to monitor the trading of coins listed on our platform.” ” was pointed out.
In September 2023, Binance announced that it would extend the delisting of privacy coins including Monero, Horizen, and Firo to Belgium.
Privacy coins have long been under intense scrutiny from U.S. regulators and law enforcement. Back in 2020, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was offering bounties to those who were able to violate Monero privacy.
In its December 2020 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said that the “anonymity-enhanced virtual currency” (AEC) protocol would allow investigators to “cryptocurrency on a distributed public ledger. “The ability to track the flow of transactions is limited,” he said. The association with illegal activity is well documented. ” The notice refers to Monero as “a type of AEC.”
Binance's decision to put a surveillance tag on its privacy coins follows a multibillion-dollar settlement with US regulators that would require the Binance exchange to be subject to oversight by US financial regulators and law enforcement. Because it became.
Under the terms of the settlement, Binance will be required to comply with regulatory “requests for information” and retroactively submit suspicious activity reports (SARs) for transactions from 2018 to 2022 to be made available to U.S. law enforcement. be subject to extensive surveillance, including agency. Former SEC attorney John Reed Stark described Binance's agreement with U.S. regulators as a “24/7 financial colonoscopy.”
