XMR-Enabled Bitcoin Transfers Removes Support for US Residents
XMR which allows users to increase the privacy of their Bitcoin (BTC) transactions by using Monero (XMR) as an intermediary currency has announced that it will not be serving United States-based clients for now.
The announcement was done via a post from a member of the site’s core team to a Reddit thread on March 30th. The statement says:
“XMR.to will for the time being not be serving customers in the US. We are working with our legal team to understand the best way forward. This policy will come into force tomorrow [March 31 2019]. Thank you for your understanding.”
XMR.to allows users to make a Bitcoin payment to a specified address, but to maximize their own anonymity by first transferring an equivalent value in privacy coin Monero to XMR.to, which after receiving the Monero executes the Bitcoin payment on the user’s behalf.
Enforcing this newly-introduced jurisdictional restriction could pose a considerable challenge for XMR.to, given that its company policy currently tends towards protecting user confidentiality not just from the public, but from the service itself. The XMR.to website said:
“No-one (including us) can link you to the [XMR] payment you send us. The only other link to us is your IP address (from which you are visiting this webpage right now), which you should hide if you wish to protect your privacy to the full extent (see best practices below).”
While the company does log IP addresses, it subsequently provides an address and outlines that users can maximize anonymity by using TOR (dark web) to fully conceal their IP address, location and identity.