Cryptocurrencies will become less private in Europe as major exchange Binance is preparing to delist all privacy tokens in countries like France and Italy.
Starting June 26, privacy tokens, such as Monero (XMR) or Zcash (ZEC), will no longer be available for trading to Binance customers in France, Italy, Poland, and Spain. .
A spokesperson for Binance said that the new restrictions affect a total of 12 coins. Affected tokens include Decred (DCR), Dash (DASH), ZEC, Horizen (ZEN), PIVX (PIVX), Navcoin (NAV), Secret (SCRT), Verge (XVG), Firo (FIRO), Beam (BEAM), XMR and MobileCoin (MOB).
“While we aim to support as many quality projects as possible, we are required to follow local laws and regulations regarding private currency transactions, to ensure we can continue serve as many users as possible,” the Binance representative said, adding:
As part of Binance’s ongoing compliance process, we have reached out to affected users to inform them that they will not be able to buy or trade privacy tokens on our platform after the 26th. June.
In an email to French customers, Binance said it can no longer offer anonymous crypto assets in some European countries due to local regulatory requirements.
Unlike popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), privacy-focused tokens like Monero or Zcash are designed to obfuscate transactions on the blockchain to enhance user privacy.