Compass Investments

– Kraken, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has announced the removal of Monero (XMR) from its list of users in the European Economic Area (EEA) due to regulatory changes. This decision marks a significant change in the availability of privacy-focused cryptocurrencies in this region.

the US exchanges will suspend all XMR transactions and deposits for EEA customers at 15:00 UTC on October 31, 2024. This includes closing the XMR/USD, XMR/EUR, XMR/BTC and XMR/USDT markets. All open orders will be automatically closed at this point.

Kraken has set a deadline for users to withdraw funds from the platform on December 31, 2024 at 15:00 UTC. After this date, all remaining XMR balances will be automatically converted to bitcoin (BTC) at the prevailing market rate. The exchange plans to distribute the converted BTC to affected users by January 6, 2025.

In a statement, Kraken emphasized that this decision was not made lightly: We did not make this decision lightly and remain committed to providing an exceptional trading experience for our European customers.

The exchange also reiterated its commitment to supporting a wide range of digital assets while complying with regulatory obligations.

This move is part of a broader trend of increased focus on coins that make transactions more anonymous, such as Monero. The delisting follows Kraken’s suspension of XMR support for Belgian and Irish customers in June.

Regulatory pressure is being driven by upcoming changes regarding cryptocurrencies in the European Union (EU), with the Market in Cryptoassets Act (MiCA) and new anti-money laundering (AML) rules coming into effect in December, which will force crypto service providers to reconsider their support for privacy-oriented coins.

Patrick Hansen, director of EU strategy and policy at Circle, explained that the new AML rules will prohibit cryptoasset service providers from offering privacy-oriented coins and users from using tokens

such as XMR to make merchant payments. He said. The regulator’s move has had a domino effect on major cryptocurrency exchanges, with Binance and OKX taking similar steps to exclude privacy-oriented coins.

This decision highlights the ongoing tension that exists between privacy technology in the cryptocurrency space and regulators’ efforts to combat money laundering and illegal activity. remains uncertain.

In April, Kraken announced it was halting Monero trading in Ireland and Belgium due to a strategic realignment. Earlier this year, Binance decided to delist Monero in order to comply with global regulations, which caused notable fluctuations in Monero’s market value. Kraken recently completed the acquisition of Dutch crypto broker BCM to expand its European operations.