The main administrators of XMR.to, a very popular Monero to Bitcoin exchange platform, announced that they will shut down their trades because of increasingly strict regulations to prevent money laundering through cryptocurrency transactions. Through a message posted on its website, it is mentioned that the new measures are too intrusive, which clearly impacts the privacy that virtual asset enthusiasts would expect on such a platform.
The American authorities have determined that financial platforms such as XMR.to should adhere to guidelines set out in legislation such as the Patriot Act, the Bank Secrecy Act, among others, similar to what is already happening in countries such as England and even Australia.
These regulations conflict directly with the main commission of XMR.to, which is to provide total anonymity to its customers. Operators even took steps such as shutting down their onion service so as not to violate U.S. laws. However, there came a time when it was impossible to maintain their operations in this way, which led operators to make the decision to withdraw from the game.
“Sad news today; with great sorrow in our hearts, we announce that the XMR.to will cease to operate. It has been a great adventure and a great privilege for us to contribute to the growth of Monero since its inception and we can close safely knowing that there are many excellent options to use Monero”, it reads in the farewell message.
“As you may have noticed, over the last few years and months we have received more and more impositions on the operation of our service, reaching the point where it is no longer feasible to execute our operations in correspondence with our fundamental privacy ideals,” the administrators add.
As XMR.to traders mention, there are currently multiple cryptocurrency exchange platforms fully focused on user privacy, although the operators of these platforms must be especially creative if they want to guarantee the privacy of their users without being pursued by law enforcement agencies.
One of the few trusted service operators in this sector is the creator of the Kilos search platform. The creator and administrator of Kilos, known as ougu, operate an exchange service similar to XMR.to called KSwap.
Other cryptocurrency exchange platforms maintain communication through anonymous channels to inform enthusiasts about any updates on these topics, including traders of sites such as Xchange.me and Anonymixer.
He is a cyber security and malware researcher. He studied Computer Science and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2006. He is actively working as an cyber security investigator. He also worked for different security companies. His everyday job includes researching about new cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in enterprise security implementation.