The Bitbay exchange has decided to untie the Monero (XMR), as they explained it in a statement issued this week. The vice tightens around anonymous altcoins, which are less and less in favour of exchanges.
Monero will be delisted on February 19, 2020
The Bitbay news release explains that the altcoin will be officially delisted on February 19, 2020. Until then, XMR's deposits will be cancelled as of Friday, November 29, 2019. Users who still have Monero on-site must remove their remaining tokens by May 20, 2020. Bitbay also takes into account the Monero fork, which will take place next Saturday, withdrawals will be blocked between this date and the beginning of December.
Bitbay provided a laconic explanation of his decision. The exchange explains, " Monero (XMR) can selectively use anonymity features among projects. [... We made the decision to block the possibility of money laundering, as well as the influx of funds from external networks."
As the press release points out, that Monero has already been removed from several crypto-FIAT exchanges for the same reasons. It is the regulations that have overcome the altcoin, "As an approved exchange, Bitbay must follow market standards. Compliance with [...] regulations allows us to provide our clients with legal security and utility". It should be noted that Zcash (ZEC) is still available on the exchange, but Bitbay does not specify why.
Bad timeline for anonymous cryptos
The anonymous cryptos are in the scope of exchanges at the end of 2019. As per reports, in September, the Okex Korea exchange had already decided to unleash all the anonymous cryptos it had offered so far, including the Monero, the Zcash and the Dash (DASH). In August, Coinbase UK also removed Zcash from its trading platform. And the Japanese Coincheck was the first to make such a decision last June.
The reason for these successive problems are the new recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Approved by the G20 in July 2018, they are increasingly weighing on exchanges.
