Delisting will take effect in late June amid tougher regulatory concerns and SEC charges against Binance and its founder.

The largest crypto exchange Binance has announced its decision to remove 12 privacy-focused cryptocurrencies from its markets in Spain, France, Poland, and Italy, effective from 26 June 2023. 

Investors operating from these four countries will no longer be able to purchase or trade the following privacy coins on Binance’s trading platform: dash (DASH), verge (XVG), beam (BEAM), monero (XMR), navcoin (NAV), firo (FIRO), horizen (ZEN), secret (SCRT), zcash (ZEC), pivx (PIVX), decred (DCR), and mobilecoin (MOB).

The combined market capitalization of all existing privacy coins was approximately $5.73 billion last week, with monero being the most popular.

Privacy coins have encountered delistings across the world due to regulatory concerns on multiple occasions in the past, with the US, the UK, some EU countries, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Canada adopting particularly oppressing regulations in 2018 through 2023.

Binance also announced last month that it would halt operations in Canada, citing the difficult regulatory climate.

Yet this week proved the most challenging for Binance. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, which is the main stumbling obstacle for the crypto sector, filed a complaint of 13 charges against the crypto exchange and its founder Changpeng Zhao over regulatory compliance and licensing, seeking, among other remedies, purported emergency relief.

The charges include operating unregistered exchanges, broker-dealers, and clearing agencies; misrepresenting trading controls and oversight on the Binance.US platform; and the unregistered offer and sale of securities. 

Critics accuse cryptocurrencies of facilitating money laundering, terrorist funding, and other criminal acts. Crypto enthusiasts instead believe governments are engaged in an orchestrated assault on the digital decentralized finance system for fear of losing control on global finances.