Cryptocurrency is going to become less private in Europe as the major exchange Binance is preparing to delist all privacy tokens in countries like France and Italy.
Starting from June 26, privacy tokens, such as Monero (XMR) or Zcash (ZEC), will no longer be available for trading for Binance customers in France, Italy, Poland and Spain.
A spokesperson for Binance told Cointelegraph that the new restrictions affect a total of 12 coins. The 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 the trading of privacy coins, to ensure we can continue to serve as many users as we can,” a representative of Binance said, adding:
“As part of Binance’s ongoing compliance processes, we have reached out to affected users, to notify them that they will no longer be able to purchase or trade privacy tokens on our platform after June 26th.”
In an email to French customers, Binance said that it was no longer able to offer enhanced anonymity crypto assets, or CAE, in several European countries due to local regulatory requirements.
Related: Monero community lashes out against ‘Mordinals’ amid privacy concerns
Unlike common cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), privacy-focused tokens like Monero or Zcash are designed to obfuscate blockchain transactions in order to increase user privacy.
Governments around the world have been actively opposing the adoption of privacy-focused cryptocurrencies and other crypto privacy tools, citing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing concerns.
In September 2022, major crypto exchange Huobi terminated support for seven privacy coins, such as Monero, citing regulatory pressures. Previously, authorities in the United States sanctioned the use of major crypto mixer Tornado Cash.
The news comes amid global jurisdictions applying major AML regulations by the Financial Action Task Force, known as Travel Rule. One of the main aspects of the Travel Rule is the requirement to pass certain customer data about crypto transactions to regulators.
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