In an e-mail quoted by Reddit users, Kraken, the world's 8th-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, announced it would be delisting privacy coin Monero (XMR) in compliance with regulations in the United Kingdom. The platform will cease all XMR trading activities, set XMR wallets to withdraw-just, and forcefulness-liquidate whatsoever existing XMR margin positions later on Nov. 26.

Through advanced cryptography, privacy coins similar Monero obscure participants' public wallet addresses and payment amounts when their transactions appear on the blockchain, making information technology improbable, in the context of current engineering, for forensic entities such as Chainalytics to digitally trace the identities of the transacting parties.

The development of privacy coins such equally XMR has been a controversial topic. Supporters claim that they provide users with greater personal privacy than cryptos with universally-viewable ledgers like Bitcoin (BTC), knowing that individuals' public wallet addresses and transactions tin't exist cross-compared with know-your-customer information stored on exchanges to pierce the shroud of their identity. Still, critics say that the untraceable nature of privacy coins makes their adoption ideal by criminals, such as for use in drug trafficking, tax evasion or money laundering operations.

Every bit a issue, privacy coins face scrutiny from cryptocurrency exchanges across the world. Last year, Coinbase refused to list XMR, citing regulatory concerns. Earlier in Jan, Bittrex delisted XMR, besides as leading privacy coins Zcash (ZEC) and Dash. Riccardo Spagni, the erstwhile maintainer of XMR, was arrested in the U.s.a. in July at the asking of the South African government on declared fraud offenses in that country between 2009 to 2022. He has since been released from custody, but court proceedings are ongoing.

Despite the growing backfire from centralized financial institutions and administrative bodies confronting privacy coins, they have connected to proceeds traction among cryptocurrency users. According to CoinGecko, the total market capitalization of all privacy coins now stands at nearly $15 billion.