One of the biggest cryptocurrency platforms in the world, Kraken, has said that it will stop supporting Monero (XMR) in the European Economic Area (EEA) by the end of October 2024. This choice was made because regulators are putting more and more pressure on privacy-focused cryptocurrency. Because of this, trade and transfers in Monero will stop on October 31. This will affect many trading pairs, such as USD, EUR, BTC, and USDT.
In a statement, Kraken said that following the rules was the main reason for this action. They also said that after carefully considering other options, they had no choice but to remove Monero from the EEA list. People who have Monero should get their money out before December 31, 2024. If you still have Monero after this limit but haven’t claimed it, it will be immediately converted to Bitcoin and sent to you by January 6, 2025.
European rules, which aim to limit the use of privacy tokens because of worries about anonymous transactions, led to the choice to stop selling Monero. As part of a bigger set of rules meant to stop money laundering and other illegal activities, these new rules put pressure on crypto service providers to follow standards for openness and traceability. Kraken had already stopped supporting Monero in Belgium and Ireland earlier in 2024. They have also limited access in other places in the past.
Monero has long been a choice among users who value financial privacy because it has advanced privacy features. But this same feature has caught the attention of officials, and markets around the world have taken it off their lists. Japan, South Korea, and Australia are just a few of the countries that have already banned private codes in a similar way. Dubai has even banned their use completely.
When Kraken made its news, the price of Monero dropped by 8%. This showed that the market was reacting to the exchange’s choice. The delisting is likely to make Monero less liquid in the EEA, but traders may still be able to find chances on open platforms or exchanges with less strict rules that still accept the privacy coin.
The future of private tokens like Monero is still unclear as regulations get stricter. While some people may look for options on decentralized markets, they may not be as easy to get to because centralized platforms are under more and more pressure.
