ShapeShift Confirmed That Regulatory Risks Led To Coin Delistings

ShapeShift confirmed in a new report that the regulatory risks were the reason for delisting privacy coins off its platform. Customers are now not able to buy or sell Zcash, Monero, or Dash on the trading platform as we reported previously in our recent cryptocurrency news.

A Shapeshift executive confirmed that the platform delisted Monero, Dash, and Zcash, all of which are privacy coins and some even drew scrutiny from US Regulators. While the platform is “de-risking” the company, several US Exchanges still offer these coins. Crypto trading platform ShapeShift confirmed that the delisting of the privacy coins Monero, Dash and Zcash came due to regulatory risks as the Chief Legal Officer Veronica McGregor said:

 “We delisted all those coins at the same time, for the same reason. We are de-risking the company from a regulatory standpoint, so, for now, we are not working with those coins. We may revisit the situation in the future.”

The CEO of ShapeShift Erik Vorhees said that the decision to remove Monero was made a few months ago though he would not provide more comments on the reasons behind the decision. The privacy-centric platform has lagged behind in regulatory adoption compared to the more “cautious” centralized exchanges. As a part of the philosophical dispute with the state regulators over mandates to provide more details, the company instead cut off services in Washington and New York. The company softened its stance back in 2018 when it adopted the KYC rules.

When you're in crypto a while, your standard of "good security" becomes drastically higher than any other industry.

Consider the wall of text lawyers use to claim "private and confidential" and yet none of them ever use PGP with their clients.

— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) November 11, 2020

One question remaining to be answered is whether the US crypto exchanges see the same regulatory landscape as ShapeShfit does.  Monero has been a taboo for most exchanges apart from Coinbase as CEO Brian Armstrong cited regulatory concerns in the United States. He doesn’t have to look far since both the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security contracted blockchain tracing companies to crack the XMR blockchain’s method for obfuscating transactions.

However, Zcash is now available on Binance.US, Gemini, Kraken and Coinbase. Back in September, Gemini allowed ZEC users on the exchange to use the shielded withdrawals on optional privacy features for Zcash addresses. As for Dash, most users can buy it in Binance, Kraken or Coinbase.