Dash pushes back against ‘privacy coin’ label after delisting. A recent tweet from Dash’s official Twitter account has called for criticism that, in the face of potential regulatory scrutiny, the cryptocurrency, which once marketed its privacy features, is wilting.
The US-based Bittrex exchange revealed in a tweet on Jan. 2 that Monero, Zcash, and Dash will be delisted. The delistings follow a similar announcement last week on Dec. 29 that Bittrex would delist XRP following an SEC complaint against Ripple, triggering rumours that in anticipation of a larger regulatory crackdown, the exchange preemptively delisted the privacy coins.
In response, Dash tweeted that they had “reached out to @BittrexExchange to request a meeting,” and that referring to DASH as a “privacy coin” is a misnomer.
As recently as 2017, however, archived screenshots from the Dash Foundation website advertise DASH as “the worlds first privacy centric crypto-currency.” The current Dash Foundation website instead now says DASH is “the leading payments cryptocurrency.”
In a recent tweet about the delisting DashPay CEO Ryan Taylor also minimized the currency’s privacy features. In a blog on the official Dash website, Taylor wrote that “regulators are concerned that exchanges may be unable to comply with KYC / AML regulations when transacting coins with privacy features,” because DASH is “often found on lists of coins with privacy enhancements.”
However, Taylor wrote that Dash has largely been successful in convincing exchanges and regulators that Dash is not a privacy coin “Through a process of education, we have been effective in explaining the technology and convincing regulators that accepting Dash poses no incremental risk compared to Bitcoin.”
The clarifications about Dash’s core focus follow an announced upgrade to Dash moving to the testnet phase, an upgrade which will include DashPay, a “social crypto payments wallet.” DASH is down 3% on the day to $87.71.
