Is Monero (XMR) Still Open for EU Investors
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Anonymity or at least pseudonymity is one of the selling points for some types of digital assets. There are numerous coins capable of veiling the origin of transactions, with no opportunity to trace wallets and owners.
Monero (XMR) remains the one most in-demand, and gave origin to similar coins offering anonymous transactions. The opportunity to veil wallets and transactions is spreading into crypto space, and even Bitcoin (BTC) is expected to get the Taproot confidentiality upgrade in November. The Litecoin project is working on implementing the MimbleWimble transaction veiling technology in the coming months.
Did the European Commission Ban Anonymous Coins
A series of tweets by EU Commissioner for Financial Services, Financial Stability and Capital Markets Mairead McGuinness, sparked fears of a ban for confidentiality coins.
McGuinness explained the EU position as a potential ban on “anonymous wallets”.
However, the actual demands of the European Commission concern the status of cryptocurrency exchanges as money managers. Market operators like the Kraken Exchange and Bitstamp already operate within the EU framework and are compliant with most anti money laundering laws.
The new law would put stricter demands on reporting the origin of funds.
Can Monero Users Remain Compliant
The users on the Monero network can choose not to show the originating address for their transactions. However, sending XMR has the option of being a transparent transaction. Additionally, sending XMR to an exchange most likely already requires full KYC, where the user is not anonymous and has all the documents verified.
In the past, Japanese exchanges have removed XMR, as well as DASH from their trading pairs, citing problems with KYC requirements. But the EC has no tools to ban the usage of the Monero or Dash networks for peer-to-peer transactions.
Is XMR Still a Good Investment
XMR reached a peak for 2021 in May, spiking to above $475. Currently, XMR is hovering around $195.21, with extremely thin trading volumes around $169M in 24 hours.
XMR lost some of its popularity after a series of delistings, mostly due to its status as an anonymous coin.
The Monero project is ran entirely by the community, after its lead developer Riccardo Spagni handed over control of upgrade decisions.
Currently, the Monero network hashrate is close to an all-time high. However, the network only produces around 2.5 GH/s. The Monero network is thus mined at only about 1/1000 ratio in comparison to the Dogecoin network. The reason for this is that the Monero protocol optimized itself only for personal mining, and disabled the inclusion of specialized rigs.
At the same time, the Monero network is highly secure, as it is impossible to use powerful machines, and acquiring GPUs and CPUs would be prohibitively expensive.
Kraken Exchange Still Offers Anonymous Coins
It is possible to buy Monero through the Kraken exchange, which also allows a fiat on-ramp for the USD and EUR. The market operator has relatively small pairs for ZCash (ZEC) and Dash (DASH).
XMR has been removed from the Bittrex exchange, but it is still represented on a long list of highly liquid markets. The XMR/USDT pairing on Binance is one of the most liquid and with relatively small slippage. This pair also allows XMR to make relatively fast gains, boosted by traders concentrated on a single exchange.
On the other hand, anonymous coins are banned from Shapeshift, one of the simplest exchange services.
Problems with Anonymous Coins
The bad rap of anonymous coins has led to a series of delistings over the years. XMR has been removed from previously highly active markets.
Sending anonymous coins may pose a problem, especially with smaller exchanges with poor customer support. By default, sending XMR must contain some level of de-anonymization, or else the exchange may not credit the transaction to the trading wallet.
Is Haven Protocol a Good Alternative to Anonymous Coins
Haven Protocol (XHV) is one of the more ambitious forks of Monero. Besides being an anonymous coin, it offers an array of stablecoins, as well as a decentralized exchange between assets.
XHV, however, is less liquid and not available on EU-based exchanges. Still, the usage of XHV is entirely anonymous and so far manages to circumvent most KYC requirements.
The biggest drawback of Haven Protocol is its still limited availability. XHV is yet to gain a Binance exchange pair, and is mostly popular with Korean exchanges.
Haven Protocol may be revving up for increased usage, after its July 19 hard fork. For the past days, the protocol has disabled the anonymous conversions, but they are expected to return in the near future.
Haven Protocol is currently recovering from a hacker attack, and will roll back the transactions as far as June 27, when most of the hacks happened. Afterward, Haven Protocol will still have somewhat limited functionalities until its network becomes more secure. XHV attempted to build a solution to complete crypto anonymity, but for now the asset should be approached with caution.
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