Binance announced that it will delist several crypto tokens, including privacy coin Monero. The list includes ANT, MULTI, VAI, and XMR, which will be removed on February 20th, 2024.
Binance claims it regularly reviews each digital asset it lists to ensure that it “continues to meet the high standard they expect.”
Binance explains that when a coin or token no longer meets this standard, or the industry changes, they conduct “a more in-depth review and potentially delist it.”
Binance believes this best “protects all their users.”
The crypto exchange points out that when they conduct these reviews, they consider a variety of factors.
Some of these factors, which influence whether they decide to delist a digital asset, are said to include the overall “commitment” of the team to a project, and the level and quality of development activity. Interestingly, it seems like both of these criteria are quite loosely or broadly defined – which can result in a lack of clarity regarding why a particular token was delisted.
In a blog post, Binance further claims that it considers the trading volume and liquidity along with the stability and safety of the network from attacks. Once again, it is challenging to fully understand the real reasons behind the delisting process based on the information provided by Binance.
In addition to the factors mentioned, Binance adds that it considers the Network / smart contract stability along with the level of public communication, responsiveness to their periodic due diligence requests, evidence of unethical/fraudulent conduct or negligence, and contribution to a healthy and sustainable crypto ecosystem.
Based on Binance’s most recent reviews, they have decided to delist and cease trading on all trading pairs for the following token(s) at 2024-02-20 03:00 (UTC): Aragon (ANT), Multichain (MULTI), Vai (VAI), Monero (XMR).
As stated in the announcement from Binance, the exact trading pairs being removed are: ANT/BTC, ANT/USDT, MULTI/USDT, USDT/VAI, XMR/BNB, XMR/BTC, XMR/ETH, XMR/USDT.
All trade orders will be automatically “removed after trading ceases in each respective trading pair,” the team at Binance noted.
They also mentioned that to view your assets after trading ceases, ensure you have not selected “Hide Small Balances” in all of your wallets. Deposits of these token(s) after 2024-02-21 03:00 (UTC) “will not be credited to your account,” the Binance team confirmed. And withdrawals of these token(s) from Binance will “not be supported after 2024-05-20 03:00 (UTC).”
Delisted tokens may be “converted into stablecoins on behalf of users after 2024-05-21 03:00 (UTC).”
As clarified by Binance, the conversion of delisted tokens into stablecoins is “not guaranteed.”
A separate notification will be “made before the conversion where applicable, and the stablecoins will be credited to users’ Binance accounts after the conversion.”
For more details on the impacted products, such as Binance Simple Earn and Binance Auto-Invest, check here.
It is also worth noting that Binance Pay will delist the aforementioned token(s) at 2024-02-18 03:00 (UTC).
Notably, Monero (XMR) is being removed from trading, which is widely used across the crypto ecosystem as a way to attempt to cloak activity. Lawmakers and regulators have been quite critical of using so-called privacy coins like XMR because they can make it very challenging to determine the source of the funds being transferred.
Even though Binance will delist XMR, this does not mean that people can no longer use it to carry out anonymous (or difficult to trace / track) transactions. Moreover, delisting privacy-enhancing tokens is nothing new, because many other service providers have chosen to delist such coins as well. For Binance, delisting all these cryptocurrencies makes sense, because the exchange has already agreed to a massive $4.3 billion+ settlement with US authorities. Not only that, but Binance continues to face major operational / compliance challenges across the globe.
It has become increasingly difficult for crypto firms to continue to operate while ignoring regulatory guidelines. And Binance is certainly no exception to that. Adopting a compliance and regulation-focused approach to business has become imperative for all crypto industry participants. Due to stricter regulations and heightened scrutiny from authorities, it would not be surprising for Binance and other exchanges to delist a large number of speculative tokens this year.