While crypto adoption has continued to increase exponentially following the shutdown of Silk Road, the perception of privacy-centric cryptocurrencies have not changed much.
Governments continue to target activities that are facilitated by digital assets in a bid to eliminate criminal rings. Such wariness has seen a number of crypto exchanges moving to delist privacy-enhancing coins within compliance boundaries.
In latest news, South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges, who happen to be among the biggest players in the industry, have delisted Monero (XMR) from their portfolio. The final nail in the coffin as far as XMR delisting goes was marked by Bithumb’s decision to eliminate the privacy coin from its platform.
If local news reports are anything to go by, Monero has had a rough time in the past few weeks in the world’s leading cryptocurrency market. The coin’s woes were exacerbated by the latest media reports that highlighted evidence about a child abuse case in which a rape video ring used Monero to facilitate illicit payments.
Bithumb’s delisting auditory board had marked the token on a planned delisting sometime last month, asserting that their decision to go ahead with the delisting will be made in case the crypto had not resolved some underlying issues. The deadline for provisional delisting has just expired, thereby confirming that Bithumb will official eliminate XMR from its platform on the first day of June.
Bithumb’s Rationale for Monero Delisting
For some time now, Bithumb has faced significant pressure from the public to officially remove XMR. This follows a host of responses by other crypto exchanges in reaction to the recently strong criticism by South Korean news targeting the Monero cryptocurrency.
The widespread public anger was specifically fueled by the Telegram Nth Room sex exploitation scandal that saw the reported delisting of Monero by the Huobi crypto exchange. Otherwise, although Huobi did not officially cite the sex controversy as the reason behind their move to delist the privacy-centric crypto, a lot of media reports hinted that the sex scandal influenced their decision making.
So far, a number of suspects have been charged with capital offenses relating to the controversy, with local prosecutors accusing the men of distributing illicit vides, many of which showed the abuse of underage girls. It is reported that consumers of the graphic material were required to pay admins in crypto for private access to the Telegram chat rooms.
Importantly, the authorities have intimated that the Nth room chief suspect, who is believed to the mastermind of the sex video ring, made a number of payments to administrator in the form of Monero – just to ensure mutual anonymity of the exchange.
At this point, Bithumb has reported that the Telegram Nth Room scandal did not provide the only ground for delisting Monero – that the cryptocurrency’ decrease in trading volumes meant that the privacy coin would not be lucrative to the platform.
Currently, XMR market capitalization stands at $1.1 billion, which makes it the 15th largest crypto by market capitalization. Additional statistics also place the coin at number 32 on the CoinPaprika 24-hour volume charts considering that the digital asset’s prices went down by almost 29%. In April, Bithumb accounted for about 0.1% of the Monero trading volume.
The recent crypto-related sex abuse scandal in South Korea has also prompted more cryptocurrency exchanges to comply with law enforcement directives as far as control of the market is concerned. This cooperation is important in ensuring that child sex abuse material distributors are brought to justice.
Certainly, the recent law enforcement and crypto exchange collaboration brings good tidings as far as the protection of children’s rights is concerned, it indicates that stakeholders are prioritizing human rights in lieu of privacy and anonymity.
