Regulated Exposure Meets Restricted Access: The Privacy Coin Divide
The financial mainstream is slowly embracing privacy-focused cryptocurrencies, while centralized exchanges are becoming less willing to support them. Grayscale's Zcash ETF, ZCSH, began trading on NYSE Arca on Aug. 25, giving US investors a way to gain spot exposure to Zcash (ZEC) through a regular brokerage account.
However, direct buying and selling of privacy coins have become more difficult in several markets due to regulatory pressure and exchange restrictions. Major centralized exchanges such as Binance, OKX, and Kraken have reduced support for Monero and other anonymity-enhancing cryptocurrencies.
THORChain's v3.20 upgrade has laid technical groundwork for native Monero (XMR) and Zcash swaps alongside assets like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and stablecoins. However, the protocol delayed the rollout of XMR and ZEC access due to network stability concerns.