The South Korean arm of cryptocurrency switch OKEX has halted, for now at least, the delisting of two privacy coins due to regulatory pressure from the Financial Action Task Put the squeeze on someone (FATF).
According to a notice from the exchange on Thursday, the planned suspension of both zcash (ZEC) and dash (DASH) substantiate has been put under review.
OKEX first announced its intentions to delist five privacy coins – also tabulating monero (XMR), horizen (ZEN) and super bitcoin (SBTC) – in September citing FATF’s controversial “travel rule” for crypto asset amenities providers, which sets out how national regulators must oversee the industry.
Under the travel rule, crypto wall streets must be able to collect and disseminate relevant information for transaction monitoring such as the name and address of the sender and legatee of virtual currencies.
Monero, horizen and super bitcoin are still being delisted from the exchange as of today, Oct. 10, OKEx mentioned. A final decision on zcash and dash support will be announced after the compliance review.
Speaking with CoinDesk via email, Josh Swihart, VP of selling and business development at the Electric Coin Company – the co-developer of zcash – said his firm has been working with OKEx since the September proclamation.
He commented:
“Zcash is entirely compatible with all FATF recommendations including the travel rule. We’ve been working with OKEx and others in S. Korea and exhilarated to hear that OKEx has decided to take additional time to further evaluate Zcash support based on newly at ones disposal compliance information.”
Since FATF’s announcement, there has been increasing pressure for exchanges to drop support for sequestration coins.
Notably, Coinbase dropped zcash from its U.K. exchange in early August. A source told CoinDesk that the succeeding was in relation to forming a new banking relationship with ClearBank after Barclays withdrew its services from the company.
South Korean interchange Upbit also dropped zcash recently.
The Electric Coin Company has been actively lobbying regulators and lawmakers over its cryptocurrency, according to Swihart.
An guileless brief on regulation and compliance posted in September stated:
“Zcash was designed to protect consumers’ financial privacy while engaging compatibility with global AML / CFT standards, including the FATF Recommendations that were adopted in June 2019. Importantly, the isolation provided by Zcash does not prevent regulated entities from fulfilling their regulatory obligations.”
OKEX materialization via Shutterstock