Coinbase CEO: Exchange Is Not Going to List XMR Due to Regulatory Concerns

Coinbase CEO: Exchange Will Not List XMR Due to Regulatory Concerns

Brian Armstrong says Coinbase won’t be listing privacy coins such as Monero (XMR) as they’re still uncharted territories for regulators in the United States.

In a July 24 interview with Peter McCormack on his “What Bitcoin Did” podcast, Armstrong said he wanted to take a more conservative approach with Coinbase so the exchange would pass the test of time. One of these issues was avoiding direct conflicts because of privacy coins including Monero.

Armstrong told McCormack, who called Monero “the most credible privacy coin,” that as privacy coins become more accepted, Coinbase’s team would consider listing them:

Associated with ransomware attacks

Though Bitcoin (BTC) is still the token of choice for some users of darknet sites and scams — for instance, the massive hack on verified Twitter accounts and continued use in fake crypto giveaways promoted on YouTube — many criminals have left instructions for their victims to pay them in XMR instead.

According to reports from July 20, hackers responsible for a ransomware attack on Argentina’s largest telecommunications company demanded $7.5 million in XMR, or 100,000 tokens.

Coinbase not the only option

Monero has been available for trading on other major exchanges such as Kraken for over three years, and Binance since September 2019. However, South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb and Singapore-based exchange Huobi announced earlier this year that they are going to remove XMR from their listings as the token faced allegations that it was used for criminal acts.