Korean crypto exchanges Upbit and Bithumb announced in public notices to users that they will drop Litecoin (LTC). Upbit will stop trading pairs with Litecoin on June 20th and give users one month from then to withdraw the asset. Bithumb has already stopped accepting LTC deposits as of June 8th. Furthermore, the exchange is giving users until July 25th to withdraw LTC funds.
Litecoin MimbleWimble Edition Delisted in Korea
The companies say the MimbleWimble Extension Blocks upgrade does not comply with South Korean AML (anti-money laundering) regulations. They were joined by three other crypto exchanges in South Korea: Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax. The five platforms announced their delisting at the same time in unprecedented coordination by the country’s crypto exchange industry.
The delisting announcements from each company were similar. South Korean regulatory authorities have made warnings about MWEB since before its release, so this comes as no surprise. Additionally, privacy coins Monero (XMR) and Zcash (ZEC) have already been removed in the Asian country.
Reportedly, though, Litecoin’s delisting is a matter of collective industry action to satisfy the government. Lawmakers summoned the five exchanges to explain their lack of coordination to delist Terra Luna. Litecoin is the first crypto the resulting joint delisting committee has actioned.
Litecoin has been advertising the new privacy features in the MWEB fork for some time. In addition to performance upgrades to strengthen its value proposition as a faster, lower-fee Bitcoin (BTC) option, it protects privacy.
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The world’s largest crypto exchange – Binance – also weighed in on the matter, indicating that it will cease supporting withdrawals and deposits of Litecoin transactions wanting to employ the MWEB feature.
Litecoin Price, Market Cap, and Outlook Thursday
According to CoinMarketCap data from today, Litecoin (LTC) has a total market capitalization of $3 billion. The altcoin has felt the adverse price movements in the crypto markets as of late just as badly, being 15% down on the day. Moreover, LTC has retraced by roughly 50% since last month when it stood above $80.
Last November, the asset peaked at $260, meaning that it has lost a whopping 83% of its value since then.
It’s a proof-of-work consensus mechanism, Bitcoin-fork blockchain, that offers some feature tradeoffs against Bitcoin to users. The number of LTC addresses and transactions and the hashrate continue to increase, suggesting it’s a healthy blockchain.
Getting delisted in South Korea loses the coin some liquidity there, but that’s a tradeoff the Litecoin community has made for its blockchain values. In addition, the new MWEB privacy features bring real new functionality to the crypto that could result in new users.
Moreover, Litecoin (LTC) supporters could think of the delistings as good marketing for MimbleWimble. In addition to getting attention from the crypto community, the delistings underscore the seriousness of the privacy solutions MimbleWimble implements for users of the LTC blockchain. They really work. They’re banned in Korea.
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