Bittrex announced on Dec. 29 that its exchange will be removing the U.S. markets for the three of the biggest privacy coins by market cap on January 15, 2021.
In the post, Bittrex stated it is giving users up to 30 days to withdraw their coins:
“After the markets are removed, Bittrex generally seeks to provide users up to 30 days to withdraw any delisted tokens, but in certain instances the withdrawal period may be shortened. Users should withdraw any tokens before the posted withdrawal deadline.”
While a reason for the delisting wasn’t announced in the post, Larry Cermak, the Director of Research at The Block, speculated that the delisting is in response to the latest talk of pressure due to the AML regulations recommended by the FATF (Financial Action Task Force).
According to Bloomberg, all “virtual asset service providers” (VASPs) will have to collect information about its customers and the recipients of funds and send that data to the receiver’s service provider with each transaction.
As FATF recognizes cryptocurrency exchanges as VASPs, they will essentially be held to the same standards banks and other financial service providers are. The new standards, published on Friday, June 21, are the officialization of FATF’s proposal made earlier in February.
The controversial rule was not well received by the crypto industry, as many crypto exchanges and wallet providers aren’t equipped to collect and send the data required by FATF.
In response to the announcement being shared by the Bittrex Twitter account on Friday night, the prices of Monero, Zcash, and Dash all dropped in the range of 7 to 15 percent.
