Trezor, a producer of cryptocurrency hardware wallets, said today that the coinjoin feature in its Trezor Suite will no longer be available. The Wasabi Wallet’s creator, zkSNACKs, is collaborating with us to offer this service, which will end in June. Trezor guarantees users that money in their Coinjoin accounts will still be available even after the shutdown.
With the help of Coinjoin, users can conceal the sources and destinations of their Bitcoin transactions. The first hardware wallet to support coinjoin transactions was Trezor. The coinjoin feature was added to the Trezor Model T in April of last year, and subsequently in August, it was also included to the Trezor Model One.
With a “heavy heart” and a need for “legal clarity,” zkSNACKs announced in a recent blog post that Wasabi Wallet will continue to provide strong privacy features, including client-side filtering and Tor integration, even in the absence of coinjoin.
The action comes after zkSNACKs decided to impose restrictions on US persons and residents’ access to its services, such as Wasabi Wallet, in response to regulatory pressure. Related websites and services are also prohibited, and IP address filtering is already in place.
Legal battle looms for non-custodial cryptocurrency service providers
Another cryptocurrency wallet service, Phoenix, recently declared it was pulling out of the US market because of continuous regulatory uncertainty. Before access is suspended on May 5, 2024, users are encouraged to transfer their monies and shut their channels.
The Bitcoin business behind Phoenix, Acinq, defended its move by saying that “recent announcements from U.S. authorities cast a doubt on whether self-custodial wallet providers, Lightning service providers, or even Lightning nodes could be considered Money Services Businesses and be regulated as such.”
The departure coincides with increased scrutiny of MetaMask and the SEC’s recent crackdown on non-custodial wallet service Samourai Wallet. According to reports, MetaMask’s parent company Consensys received a Wells Notice from the SEC. This notice is intended to serve as an early alert that the SEC may take legal action.
Consensys decided to take on the regulatory hurdles head-on rather than wait for additional SEC measures, so it launched a lawsuit against the SEC in response. Prior to this, the securities office also sent a Wells Notice to Uniswap Labs, the group that created the decentralized exchange Uniswap.
May 2024, Cryptoniteuae
