Kraken set to drop Monero support for UK customers on 26 November 2021

Kraken¹ looks set to drop Monero support for UK customers, as users report²’³’⁴’⁵’⁶ on emails received today from the company:

We are reaching out regarding an update to trading and funding of Monero (XMR) on Kraken.

In compliance with UK regulations, Kraken (Payward Ltd) will no longer be supporting Monero (XMR) on its platform.

Here are the relevant dates:

23 November 2021

• Monero margin positions will be set to reduce only

26 November 2021

• all Monero (XMR) trading on Kraken will cease in the UK (includes Instand buy/sell services, XMR/BTC, XMR/USD & XMR/EUR order book trading)
• XMR deposits will no longer be credited after this date
• all open margin positions will be force liquidated and any open orders will be cancelled

Kraken has launched Monero trading on their platform in 2017⁷.

Although this move doesn’t seem correlated with any new piece of regulation, it is most probably only a matter of time until Kraken will completely delist XMR everywhere.

All CEXs will eventually have to comply with AML standards imposed by regulators such as UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)⁸.

There are alternatives⁹ and this is the best time to make the transition: atomic swaps¹⁰, Localmonero¹¹, CakeWallet¹², Bisq¹³ and soon Haveno¹⁴.