Monero Delisted - Monthly New

Binance to Delist Monero Privacy Token:

The crypto exchange will stop listing the token along with Aragon, Multichain and Vai as of Feb. 20.

Monero (XMR) dropped 30% on Tuesday the 6th of February to a 20-month low after Binance said it will stop listing the privacy token as of February 20th.

Monero, as well as the three other tokens to be delisted – Aragon (ANT), Multichain (MULTI) and Vai (VAI) – no longer meet the standards Binance expects, the exchange said.

Link to Blog Post by Binance: 

Binance Will Delist ANT, MULTI, VAI, XMR on 2024-02-20 | Binance Support

This is a general announcement. Products and services referred to here may not be available in your region. Fellow Binancians, At Binance, we periodically review each digital asset we list to ensur…

Binance Support

"When a coin or token no longer meets this standard, or the industry changes, we conduct a more in-depth review and potentially delist it," Binance said.

The delisting is happening because Binance is now requiring that deposits come from a publicly transparent address. Monero has used stealth addresses for ALL addresses since it’s launch in April 2014

Monero allows selective disclosure with view keys but not a transparent address

What this means for Decred?

Decred has opt-in privacy and addresses are transparent. There doesn't appear to be a risk for Decred to be delisted.

What this means for other privacy coins/tokens?

We will have to monitor the market closely and see how this will affect other coins/tokens going forward. It appears regulation is tightening its noose on the cryptocurrency sector.

XRP Hacked

https://x.com/WatcherGuru/status/1752706743296307287

Ripple has been hacked for $112 million worth of XRP. Crypto investigator ZachXBT reported that the company was hacked for 213 million XRP tokens. Moreover, the stolen funds were then laundered through MEXC, Gate, Binance, Kraken, OKX, HTX, and HitBTC.

Shortly after the hack was reported, Ripple’s XRP token had fallen by more than 5%. The report stated that the mass of funds had been stolen by one wallet, which ZachXBT did release in his original post to X (formerly Twitter). Shortly after, Ripple co-founder Chris Larson confirmed the hack had taken place.

Solana Outage

The Solana network experienced a significant outage on Feb. 6 at 10:22 am UTC, with block production halted for over five hours before validators restarted the network.

This is not the first time Solana has gone down. Since January 2022, Solana has seen around half a dozen significant outages and 15 partial or major outage days.

Bitcoin soars to two-year high:

The world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap is rallying due to big investors' growing appetite. Bitcoin's price rose 10% in two days and was trading at more than $56,000 (€51,606), the highest since November 2021.

The CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (XBX) had a peak of $56,940.18 (€52,472.08).

One of the main drivers of the current rally was crypto investor and software firm MicroStrategy announcing a large purchase of 3,000 bitcoins for $155 million (€143 million).

Interesting Stories from the month:

February 1st to February 7th:

• BTC performance is behaving like that of the past 2 cycles, as the current halving cycle is ending with the fourth halving anticipated to happen in mid to late April 2024
• Coinbase holds nearly 40% of BTC liquidity in the US, followed by Kraken (33%) and Bitstamp (9%)
• South Korea to enforce tougher crypto law with potential life sentence
• Thailand waives value-added tax on crypto gains: report

February 8th to February 15th:

• Criminal sentencing of Binance founder CZ postponed to late April
• Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund made $200 million crypto investment before bull run
• Coinbase reports 4Q earnings, revenue of $954M, beating expectations of $818.9M
• Celsius distributed $2 billion of crypto to creditors, court document shows

February 16th to February 23rd:

• Retail activity on Coinbase stayed low in Q4 2023
• U.S. bans crypto addresses tied to LockBit Ransomware Group from financial system
• Around 70% of Bitcoin has remained untouched for over a year, indicating low market liquidity
• England's Law Commission seeks draft views on legislation to label crypto as property
• Nigeria blocks access to crypto exchanges in effort to curb currency slide
• Retail investors were likely behind the crypto market rally in February, JPMorgan says
• Reddit adds Bitcoin and Ethereum to balance sheet, may continue to do so in future; files to list IPO on NYSE
• Kraken moves to dismiss SEC lawsuit, which the crypto firm says is retaliation from ‘a politically compromised agency’

February 24th to February 29th:

• The total stablecoin market value climbed to nearly $140 billion for the first time since late 2022.
• New Bitcoin ETFs surpass 300,000 BTC holdings in under two months
• Kraken launches custody service, aims to compete with Coinbase
• Sam Bankman-Fried asks for 6.5 year prison term after conviction in FTX collapse
• Nigeria detains Binance executives in cryptocurrency crackdown