The year 2018 and part of 2019, saw the fall of several ‘revolutionary’ crypto projects which eventually led to the delisting of tokens from the cryptocurrency exchanges. The primary reasons given for this included lack of liquidity, usage issues, as well as lack of regulatory abidance by the delisted tokens. On October 2, 2019, Financemagnates released a thorough analysis of the causes and consequences of the situation. This article is all about our take on the published report.
In 2017, the bullish market induced tens of thousands of new investors into the crypto market who were attracted by the lucrative high return of initial coin offerings. Though, with the market downfall, the focus turned to the blockchain technology. This unfavorable situation gave a golden opportunity to the top crypto exchanges to yield an amount as high as $15 million dollars from crypto and blockchain projects for listing their tokens and allowing the investors to trade their currencies. These payments of the whopping amount to the exchanges are a basic element for the development of a project, as it leads to the exchange of the token in periods succeeding to the fundraising.
However, with the advent of 2018, the declining prices, plummeting interest rates, and diminishing trade volumes buried all the revolutionary projects into the debris. The present volumes, as per the CoinMarketCap reveals that out of the suite of more than 2900 registered assets, there are nearly sixty cryptocurrencies that generate a volume of more than $10 million dollars in a day. Owing to such complex situations, cryptocurrency exchanges gave a nod to delist the trading pairs that didn’t have substantial liquidity. Recently, Binance broadcasted that with an aim to improve liquidity and user trading experience, it would delist thirty trading pairs soon.
Liquidity threat is not the only reason for the exchanges to drop the assets as sometimes some decisions are not taken considering only professional parlance.
The Bitcoin Gold development team was revealed to receive real threats from Bittrex to stay listed. BTG development team published that Bittrex conveyed to them that they made this decision because the BTG team would not pay 12,372 BTG to Bittrex in lieu of the loss they accrued after the double-spend attack on May 19.
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Such a case was also reported by UnikoinGold which was threatened to be delisted in absence of artificial manipulation of the trading volume.
Effects of Regulatory Pressure
Stringent regulatory policies and government control in countries around the world serve as crucial reasons for the crypto exchanges to delist a currency. The U.S. has strengthened the control of digital assets through its policies in the year 2019. Poloniex declared to halt the trading of nine altcoins in the U.S market space from May 29, 2019.
The Asian regulators laid focus primarily on privacy tokens like Dash and Monero. With the intergovernmental organization, Financial Action Task Force, strengthening the regulatory terms, crypto exchanges, OKEx and Upbit has announced the delisting of the main privacy coins from their platform to abide by the FATF guidelines.
Amid these hot-shot cases of delisting of cryptocurrencies from the exchanges, the most talked about and hyped delisting case of the year is about Bitcoin SV. Binance was the first exchange to delist the coin. The exchange stated that the reason behind the decision is based on the periodic reviews of the listed tokens concerning commitment towards project, communication, quality level, and revert to requests. However, the rumors suggest that the real reason was more personal than merely professional.
Craig Wright is not Satoshi.
Anymore of this sh!t, we delist! https://t.co/hrnt3fDACq
— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) April 12, 2019
In April 2019, Craig Wright sued individuals who refused to accept him to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin. Binance’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao didn’t go on with the accusations without showing a strong reaction. His step was followed by numerous exchanges that delisted Bitcoin SV leading to a 6% loss for the coin in a few minutes after the release of the news.
Is It Censorship Or A Warning?
Delisting of cryptocurrencies gave rise to a conflicting situation in the digital currency space as some people fear that, this delisting leads to censorship by a cartel of exchanges while some argue that BSV delisting brings negative returns for the customers of the exchange. In counter, exchanges reveal that such drastic steps are taken in accordance with the regular controls they employ on the tokens listed so that the customers can enjoy the best trading experience.
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The claims of censorship can hold a stand only if these exchanges were public which is not the case as they are private and have full right to set barriers as per their wish. The exchanges are free to list or delist any asset as per their choice, though, there is always a centralized power controlling these exchanges.
It is crucial for the entities to work out on cryptocurrencies that are not solely dependent on the exchange platform as this will lead to the failure of the project in the long run.
