Coincheck Removes Monero, Dash, and Zcash Due to “Risks”

More interesting developments are happening in the world of cryptocurrency. Coincheck has made a lot of major headlines in the past few months. The company was recently hacked and is now dropping support for anonymity-oriented currencies altogether. It’s a rather surprising development, although one that is easily justified.

More Coincheck Developments

The main reason people are focused on the Coincheck exchange right now is its recent hack. Around 500 million NEM was stolen from the company, and the hackers have seemingly vanished without a trace. Rumor has it that some of this stolen money has been laundered through various means, including darknet markets. Whether or not that is correct remains to be determined at this stage.

Even so, the exchange will begin reimbursing customers out of its own pocket very soon. This does not mean the stolen money has been recovered, as there is still no indication of who may have stolen the funds or how they are trying to cash out. These developments have brought a lot of scrutiny to Coincheck over the past few weeks, and it seems the company is making some erratic decisions as of right now.

More specifically, Coincheck has announced it will soon delist three of the more popular cryptocurrencies on the platform because all three currencies provide privacy and anonymity features. Whether or not this was an internal decision or a matter forced upon them by Japanese regulators is impossible to tell.

Either way, Monero, Dash, and Zcash will be removed from Coincheck altogether. All three currencies allegedly pose “big risks” for the company in terms of their money laundering potential. It is uncanny how the perception of cryptocurrency has changed in this regard. For the longest time, people associated Bitcoin with money laundering due to its perceived anonymity. Now it is the altcoins which actually provide such features which will receive the same degree of scrutiny.

Unlike what most people may think, Dash and Zcash are not completely anonymous. While they both provide privacy features, users of both currencies have been successfully identified through blockchain analysis in the past. Monero, on the other hand, is a different creature altogether. It is one of the only anonymity coins on the market right now, and it is gaining traction on the darknet. That increase in popularity may have influenced the decision made by the Japanese exchange.

For now, all three currencies have been removed from the exchange. Users should still be able to withdraw money in these currencies, although the details remain a bit vague on that front as of right now. The bigger question is whether or not other exchanges will “ban” these three currencies as well. Anonymous cryptocurrencies are in the spotlight right now; that much is obvious.