According to the developers, the reason for the delisting was the mistaken belief that the network continues to operate under an anonymous model

Horizen team comments on the delisting of native token ZEN from OKX and Binance exchanges

05.01.2024 - 11:09

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2 min

What’s new? Horizen blockchain developers have commented on the situation with the delisting of the native token ZEN from major crypto exchanges. Thus, the OKX platform stopped accepting deposits in ZEN on December 27 and left the possibility of withdrawing the coin until March 5. In turn, Binance assigned ZEN a Monitoring Tag, suggesting the possibility of delisting in the short term due to non-compliance with internal criteria. Both exchanges have taken similar actions regarding the anonymous cryptocurrencies Monero (XMR) and Zcash (ZEC). Horizen aims to convey to exchanges that ZEN is no longer an anonymous coin, the team said in a January 5 statement.

Source: Twitter.com

What else is known? Previously, the Horizen blockchain, as well as Monero and Zcash, could anonymize transactions. However, after Binance delisted all anonymous cryptocurrencies for users from France, Italy, Spain, Poland, and Belgium due to local legal requirements, the developers decided to abandon the anonymous blockchain model to reduce regulatory risks.

For example, last January, the Horizen community approved the ZenIP 42204 network improvement proposal to remove all consensus-level privacy features of the mainnet. Along with the ZEN 4.1.0 update, shielded transactions with transparent inputs were removed from the Horizen mainnet, and the ZEN coin is no longer anonymous.

Despite this, OKX and Binance recognized the asset as not meeting internal criteria. Horizen explained that it is “in active communication with all our exchange partners and are working closely with them to ensure a mutual understanding that ZEN is not a privacy token.”

Moreover, in a new filing, the developers have proposed another enhancement, numbered ZenIP 42207, which, if approved, would completely remove the shielded pool from the Horizen blockchain. At the same time, users will have the opportunity to transfer assets from the shielded pool until the 4.2.0 hard fork in mid-February this year. Voting on the proposal is scheduled to begin on January 8.

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