It seems there might be a slight inaccuracy in the year you mentioned. While Binance did announce plans regarding privacy coins, it was primarily in May 2023 and involved restrictions for users in specific European countries rather than a complete delisting of 12 privacy coins globally at that time.
Here's a breakdown of what happened:
* Initial Announcement (May 2023): Binance announced that it would restrict the purchase and trading of 12 privacy coins for users in France, Italy, Spain, and Poland starting on June 26, 2023. The affected coins included Monero (XMR), Zcash (ZEC), Dash (DASH), and others like Decred (DCR), Horizen (ZEN), PIVX (PIVX), Navcoin (NAV), Secret (SCRT), Verge (XVG), Firo (FIRO), Beam (BEAM), and MobileCoin (MOB).
* Reasoning: Binance cited regulatory compliance as the primary reason for this decision, particularly with the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework coming into effect. These regulations raised concerns about the anonymity provided by privacy coins and the ability of exchanges to monitor transactions for illicit activities.
* Reversal (June 2023): Interestingly, Binance reversed its decision shortly after the initial announcement. They stated that after carefully considering feedback from their community and the projects, they had revised how they classify privacy coins to comply with EU-wide regulatory requirements. This meant that the delisting for those specific European countries did not go ahead as initially planned.
* Later Developments:
* Monitoring Tag: In January 2024, Binance added a "monitoring tag" to several privacy coins, including Monero and Zcash, indicating they were under review and could potentially be delisted if they no longer met Binance's standards.
* Actual Delistings (February 2024): In February 2024, Binance did proceed to delist Monero (XMR) trading pairs from its main platform. They cited their periodic review process and the need to ensure listed assets continue to meet their high standards.
* Binance Dubai (April 2025): More recently, Binance Dubai announced that it would delist privacy tokens, including Zcash (ZEC) and cease support for Dash (DASH) mining income, as part of its move to a locally regulated exchange under the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA). These changes are set to take effect in April and June 2025.
* Other Exchanges: Other exchanges like OKX and Kraken have also delisted certain privacy coins due to regulatory pressures.
Therefore, while Binance did have plans and actions related to delisting privacy coins, the timeline and scope you mentioned were slightly different. The May 2023 announcement was initially for a restriction in specific EU countries and was later reversed, while actual delistings of coins like Monero occurred later, and further delistings are planned for Binance Dubai in 2025.
