Australians can still own privacy coins like Monero, Zcash, and Dash - but trading them on local exchanges? Not anymore. Since early 2025, every major Australian crypto platform has pulled these assets from their listings. It’s not a law banning ownership. It’s a regulatory wall built around exchanges, and it’s changed how people access privacy-focused crypto.
Why Australia Pulled the Plug on Privacy Coins
It’s not about targeting users. It’s about compliance. The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) requires all digital currency exchanges to know who their customers are, track every transaction, and flag anything suspicious. Privacy coins make that impossible. Monero uses ring signatures and stealth addresses to hide sender, receiver, and amount. Zcash offers optional shielded transactions using zero-knowledge proofs. Dash has PrivateSend, which mixes coins to obscure origins. These aren’t bugs - they’re the whole point. But for regulators, they’re deal-breakers. AUSTRAC doesn’t have the power to ban privacy coins outright. But it can - and does - cancel the licenses of exchanges that fail to meet AML/CTF rules. In 2024, AUSTRAC suspended three digital currency exchange registrations over inadequate transaction monitoring. By 2025, exchanges had a choice: remove privacy coins or risk losing their license. Most chose removal.What Exchanges Did - and Why
Independent Digital Assets Exchange (IDAX) found that 78% of its institutional clients supported removing privacy coins. Banks, hedge funds, and family offices don’t want to touch assets that can’t be traced. They’re worried about being flagged for facilitating money laundering, even accidentally. Binance, Kraken, and Poloniex all delisted Monero, Zcash, and Dash from their Australian platforms in early 2025. Kraken did the same in Canada after FINTRAC tightened rules. Poloniex pulled Monero globally after pressure from the U.S. Treasury Department. Australia didn’t act alone - it joined a global wave. In 2025, 73 exchanges worldwide removed privacy coins, up from 51 in 2023. ASIC, Australia’s financial watchdog, has been equally aggressive. It’s taken legal action against Qoin, Block Earner, and Finder Wallet for offering unlicensed financial services. Deputy Chair Sarah Court has repeatedly warned that using crypto doesn’t exempt you from financial laws. Exchanges aren’t just being cautious - they’re scared.What This Means for You
If you’re an Australian who wants to buy Monero today, you can’t do it on CoinSpot, Swyftx, or Independent Reserve. Those platforms won’t let you. You can still hold it if you bought it before the ban, but you can’t trade it locally. Selling? You’ll need to move it to an international exchange - which comes with risks. Some users turned to peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms like LocalMonero. Activity there rose 19% after centralized exchanges dropped privacy coins. But P2P isn’t safer. You’re dealing with strangers. No chargebacks. No dispute resolution. No consumer protection. One wrong trade, and your money could vanish - with no recourse. There’s also the tax angle. The ATO tracks crypto transactions. If you buy Monero overseas and later sell it, you still owe capital gains tax. But without a local exchange to provide transaction history, you’re on your own to track everything. Many users don’t - and risk penalties later.
How Other Countries Compare
Australia’s approach is middle-ground. Japan banned privacy coins entirely in 2018. All exchanges had to delist them. Dubai followed suit in 2024. The EU will ban them outright in July 2027 under its new AML Regulation. But some places still allow them - with strict rules. Switzerland and Liechtenstein let exchanges list privacy coins, but only if they enforce full KYC and transaction monitoring. It’s harder, slower, and more expensive - which is why even those exchanges rarely offer them. In the U.S., privacy coins aren’t banned, but exchanges avoid them. The IRS offered $625,000 in bounties to anyone who can crack Monero’s privacy tech. That’s not a marketing campaign - it’s a sign of how seriously they view the threat.Is There a Way Around This?
Technically, yes. You can use a VPN and sign up for an offshore exchange like KuCoin or Bybit. But you’re breaking Australian law if you’re using an unregistered platform. AUSTRAC considers that a breach of the Anti-Money Laundering Act. You could be fined - or worse, investigated. Some developers are trying to build “compliant privacy coins” - ones that hide transaction details from the public but allow regulators to see them with a warrant. But that’s not privacy anymore. It’s surveillance with a side of cryptography. Most privacy advocates reject it outright. There’s also the question of innovation. Privacy coins were born out of distrust in centralized systems. Removing them from exchanges doesn’t kill the tech - but it does kill accessibility. The average user can’t run a full node, set up a wallet, or understand ring signatures. They rely on exchanges. And now, those exchanges are closed to them.