Kraken will delist Monero in the European Economic Area and stop accepting deposits or trading of XMR because of legal developments.
Due to changes in regulations, the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, based in the United States, plans to delist Monero from the European Economic Area.
Kraken said on its blog that, as of October 31 at 15:00 PM UTC, clients registered in the EEA will no longer be able to trade or deposit on the XMR markets, which include XMR/USD and XMR/EUR.
At that point, open orders will automatically close. Kraken has established the deadline for XMR withdrawals as December 31.
Any XMR balances that remain after this date will be converted to Bitcoin (BTC) at market rates and distributions will be completed by January 6, 2025. The step is being taken in response to growing regulatory scrutiny of privacy coins that provide improved transaction anonymity, such as Monero.
Kraken emphasized that while this decision was not made lightly, it remains “committed to supporting the most comprehensive set of digital assets possible, in alignment with our regulatory and compliance obligations.”
The exchange stopped providing XMR functionality for users in Belgium and Ireland in June. Major cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and OKX have also started delisting coins as privacy coins are scrutinized more.
New anti-money laundering regulations and the December implementation of the MiCA Act are compelling cryptocurrency service providers to discontinue serving currencies with a privacy focus.
The new AML standards forbid consumers from using tokens like XMR to make merchant payments and for crypto-asset service providers to offer privacy coins, as previously outlined by Patrick Hansen, director of policy and strategy for Circle in the EU.
