By Zcash, one of the most popular privacy coins right now for its enhanced privacy features has recently been dropped from Coinbase UK according to the emails that the cryptocurrency exchange is sending out to its customers. The privacy coin will no longer be available on Coinbase for their users in the UK starting August 26, 2019.
The exchange has asked their customers to convert their holdings in Zcash to some other cryptocurrencies that are available or move their funds to an external wallet. If the holdings aren’t moved or converted, the Zcash will be automatically converted to British pounds (GBP). Coinbase has provided no particular reason as to why they made this move because Zcash is available on other exchanges operating in the UK.
The Electric Coin Company, the firm behind the development of Zcash, asked users in the UK to transfer their Zcash holdings to other exchanges:
The rising question among Zcash users was whether the privacy token was compliant with UK regulations. The firm addressed the issue by notifying the community, declaring:
“To pre-empt speculation, we confirm that Zcash is 100% compatible with UK regulations & KYC/AML requirements.”
Zcash might be facing some regulatory issues
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published the much-anticipated final guidance on crypto-assets in July. The report clearly stated that even though exchange tokens like bitcoin and Ethereum might not fall under its regulatory boundaries, but tokens like Zcash would be well in their regulatory framework. There could very well be an underlying plot here, as Zcash is a privacy coin and allows its users to hide their transactions using a zero-knowledge proof consensus called zk-SNARKs.
With the British tax agency cracking down on exchanges to reveal customer information for unpaid taxes, various regulatory issues might arise around privacy coins.
Coinbase has yet to provide an official statement regarding this event and all the customers are still in the dark. Just a few months back the exchange had announced their earn program with Zcash and some other tokens, where one can learn about different cryptocurrencies via educational content and also earn some of the selected cryptocurrency.
Until there are any further developments regarding this event, users based in the UK region will have to move to some other exchanges that support Zcash to continue trading this privacy coin.
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