Victory for Privacy Lovers: Binance Gives In to Coin Listings

Privacy Advocates Achieve Major Victory with Binance

In June, privacy advocates achieved a major victory when Binance reversed its plan to remove privacy coins from its platform for customers in various European countries.

As a consequence of the shift, users in Italy, Poland, Spain, and France will be allowed to keep trading digital assets such as Zcash (ZEC), Monero (XMR), Decred (DCR), Horizen’s ZEN, Verge (XVG), Dash (DASH), Secret (SCRT), Firo, Navcoin (NAV), MobileCoin (MOB), Beam, and PIVX.

It would have been a major blunder to ban the coins. Privacy coins give individuals more protection against financial tracking by providing improved transaction protection, and crypto communities should be grateful that Binance is no longer intending to take them off its listings. In today’s environment of too much monitoring and overall absence of privacy for users everywhere, their value cannot be exaggerated.

Binance was incorrect in excluding Monero, Zcash and other privacy coins.

The fungibility of these coins, allowing each unit to be interchangeable and resistant to censorship, gives them an advantage over nearly all other cryptocurrencies. If these extra layers of security and anonymity were to be lost, it would have been a devastating blow to the community.

The Importance of Privacy in the Crypto Sector

Privacy coins have recently become popular due to the emergence of stringent regulations. Binance’s decision is a result of the European Union’s newly-established standards for digital assets, the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulations. This law was recently adopted and in July, the European Securities and Markets Authority will begin a MiCA consultation process. It is clear that there are significant developments in this area and that Europe may have more to offer to the crypto sector.

The reality is that privacy is a basic human right safeguarded by the United Nations. According to Article 12 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “no one should be subjected to random intrusion into their privacy” and “everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.” Therefore, why should the case be any different for cryptocurrencies?

In the digital age, this idea is even more essential, as the potential for exploiting data grows exponentially and tech giants have all the means necessary to attempt to keep people from having authority over their personal data.

Binance’s choice is a testament to the delicate equilibrium between meeting regulatory requirements and protecting users’ privacy that exchanges must constantly strive to maintain, even with the varying regulations from country to country, and even when some countries decide to implement stricter rules than others.

The Crypto Community’s Power to Shape the Future of Crypto

The SEC charges against Binance and Coinbase are detrimental to the DeFi sector.

Regarding the potential consequences of Binance’s decision as well as the strong regulatory pressure in Europe, there may be an increased desire for and development of privacy coins. Interestingly, the example set by Binance could cause other exchanges to reconsider their position on privacy coins, potentially resulting in higher accessibility. Time will tell.

At the conclusion of this week’s headlines, it is evident that the collective opinion of the community is a powerful force in influencing cryptocurrency policies and regulations. The statement issued by the crypto trading platform declared, “We have updated our classification of privacy coins after carefully considering the feedback we received from our customers.” It is clear that the negative response they experienced during the last month was effective.

It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of privacy in the crypto sector, which is why we must always take every opportunity to fight for it.

At the core of it, the community’s sway on Binance’s choice illustrates its capacity to form the destiny of the crypto sector – and it would be wise of us to not overlook that.

The crypto community should unite to keep advocating for privacy. It is the bedrock of Web3. Just as the Romans used to say, “ibi semper est victoria ubi est concordia”: Victory is always found in unity.