Ricardo Spagni, the former lead maintainer of Monero, one of the most used privacy coins in the cryptocurrency market, has called on Binance to take a stance on the issue of privacy coins. Spagni stated that avoiding taking sides in the process is a disservice to the whole industry and that any protocol-level changes to make Monero compliant are “unnecessary.”
Former Monero Lead Dev Ricardo ‘Fluffypony’ Spagni Calls on Binance to Stand for Privacy Coins
Ricardo “Fluffypony” Spagni, the former lead maintainer of Monero, has called on Binance to change its position on delisting privacy-focused coins. In a recent X post, Spagni criticizes Binance’s stance, which could lead to the delisting of these currencies in January.
Supported by a report produced by consulting firm Perkinscoie, which states that “privacy coins protect legitimate individual and commercial privacy interests and that existing financial regulations sufficiently address the AML issues that privacy coins present,” Spagni blasted Binance’s compliance requirements.
Spagni stated:
By not taking a stance you do the industry a disservice, and support the barrage of attacks against personal privacy. If Apple can take a stance against CSAM, you can grow a backbone and fight for the right to privacy for everyone.
According to reports, one of the requirements that Binance would be asking privacy projects to fulfill is the creation of “exchange only” addresses without privacy shielding features. Firo, another privacy coin, is in the process of implementing these changes.
However, according to Spagni, the Monero community values user privacy over other elements, and any degradation of that goal will never be adopted. He stressed:
Any protocol level changes are unnecessary, but they also simply will never happen.
Binance had announced it would delist 12 privacy coins, including monero and zcash, in some European Union (EU) countries back in May, citing “local regulatory requirements” as the reason behind these actions. However, after receiving feedback from these projects and their communities, the exchange backpedaled, explaining it had reviewed the classification of such currencies to “comply with EU-wide regulatory requirements.”
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