Privacy Coins Zcash, Monero and Dash to Be Delisted by Major Crypto Exchange OKX

Key takeaways:

• Major exchanges like OKX and Binance are delisting major privacy coins like Zcash, Monero, and Dash due to unspecified listing criteria issues.
• The impending delistings caused significant price drops for the affected coins as traders rushed to sell ahead of diminished exchange access.
• As of today, ZEC is trading at $29.63, XMR is trading at $172.69, and DASH is trading at $34.98.

Some privacy coins are facing an existential threat as major cryptocurrency exchanges OKX and Binance announced plans to delist them from their platforms.

OKX, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, announced today that it will delist three privacy coins: Zcash (ZEC), Monero (XMR) and Dash (DASH).

According to its announcement, OKX will stop accepting deposits of ZEC, XMR and DASH by Jan 5 2024, and will halt trading and withdrawals of these coins onsame period. Users who hold these coins are advised to transfer them to other platforms or wallets before the deadline.

OKX further stated that the affected pairs “do not fulfill our listing criteria,” but did not provide further details on what criteria they failed to meet.

The leading privacy coins Dash, Monero, and Zcash plunged on the news, with Dash falling 7%, Monero dropping 2%, and Zcash sinking over 9% as traders dumped holdings ahead of diminished exchange access. As of Friday, ZEC is trading at $29.63, XMR is trading at $172.69, and DASH is trading at $34.98.

OKX also revealed it will halt trading for the first batch of pairs, including KSM-USDC and FLOW-USDC, on January 4th during the 8:00 to 8:30 UTC time frame. The second round of removals on January 5th contains the majority of the anonymity-enhancing assets, including XMR, DASH, and ZEC pairs. OKX had already suspended deposits for affected assets on Dec. 27th 2023

Binance is also reportedly planning to delist ZEC and in several European countries. However, the exchange has not officially confirmed the news, but rumors of the delisting has created a concern in the Zcash community with a user stating that “If Binance can kill privacy coins, they were never supposed to survive. Zcash has already done everything to be as compliant as possible.”

$XMR (@monero) is supposed to get delisted from @binance in January and $ZEC (@zcash) probably in March.

If Binance can kill privacy coins, they were never supposed to survive. Zcash has already done everything to be as compliant as possible.

Time to stand for privacy!… pic.twitter.com/zUrXGdqZUq

— Lukas Kozak (@lukas_kozak_) December 27, 2023