The largest exchange Binance on Tuesday, February 20, completed the delisting of the anonymous cryptocurrency Monero. However, the day before this event, dissatisfied customers appeared, concerned about what they believed was a premature suspension of withdrawals of funds in XMR.
One of the Binance clients posted a screenshot of a notification that XMR withdrawals were suspended due to a low hot wallet balance. This happened at least 12 hours before XMR was delisted from the exchange. Although the Binance announcement stated that withdrawals of funds in these altcoins will be stopped on May 20, 2024.
“Why wouldn't an exchange store all of its XMR in a hot wallet, knowing the delisting schedule to avoid mass selling? For what reason does Binance store XMR in a cold wallet? Are we just hours away from being delisted? No. They just want you to have to sell XMR and not withdraw. This is called last-minute manipulation,” a dissatisfied client of the largest crypto exchange said indignantly..
On February 19, the XMR sell-off actually occurred, and the coin reached its all-time low against Bitcoin. On the centralized cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, XMR traded for just 0.002100 BTC. At the same time, Monero remains in the $120 price range. To prove its sustainability, XMR must cope with the loss of its most liquid market. As the situation heats up, other cryptocurrency platforms may decide to follow Binance's lead and delist Monero.
At the beginning of the year, Finnish media claimed that the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation was able to track anonymous transactions with XMR and identify the final recipient of the coins.