Kraken is about to remove the privacy coin Monero XMR
+0.99%
from the platform for customers in Ireland and Belgium on June 10.
In a notice Posted earlier today, the crypto exchange clarified that all XMR trading and deposits will stop starting May 10 and that all margin positions should be closed by that date to avoid a forced shutdown.
Kraken said that XMR withdrawals will then be halted on June 10, at which point any remaining XMR balance will be automatically converted to bitcoin.
Kraken’s move follows Binance delisting Monero from its main platform in February after placing “monitoring beacons” on several privacy coins in January. Binance previously decided to remove privacy coins in Belgium in September 2023.
Rival crypto exchange OKX also delisted Monero, alongside privacy-focused coins Zcash and Dash, in January.
New European anti-money laundering regulations
This announcement comes amid the new EU Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR), which is expected to be definitively and purely formally approved by the European Parliament and the EU Council this month. It would then come into force three years after its publication, around summer 2027.
The AMLR prohibits CASPs (cryptoasset service providers) from providing accounts for privacy coins, although this practice is already widespread. The European legislation on markets in crypto-assets (MiCA), which entered into force in June 2023 and which will be fully applicable from December 30, 2024, already prohibits crypto-assets with integrated anonymization.
Monero has been trading flat over the past 24 hours, down about 1% to $132.60, according to The Block’s price page.
XMR/USD. Image: Le bloc/TradingView.
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