Kraken users began receiving emails from the exchange asking them to explain why they had withdrawn Monero and where their money came from. A screenshot of one such request appeared on Reddit. The post’s author warned that anyone who had used XMR on the platform in the past six months could receive a similar email.
Formally, this is a routine source-of-funds check. But the community saw it as pressure on holders of a privacy coin that Kraken had already removed from its European platform in 2024.
What the exchange requires
A letter from Kraken Support contains three questions. They must be answered within seven days. The exchange asks the user to:
name their place of work and provide documents to verify it;
explain the source of their USD and USDC deposits, attaching statements, transaction records, or reports from other exchanges;
disclose the purpose of their Monero withdrawals and explain how the coins will be used going forward.
A Kraken Support letter asking about employment, source of funds, and Monero withdrawals. Source: Reddit.
Kraken itself says these requests are required by anti-money laundering laws. Under the exchange’s rules, a Source of Funds check verifies where the money for a specific transaction came from, while a Source of Wealth check shows how a person accumulated their wealth overall.
Kraken has not completely abandoned Monero. Spot trading in XMR against USD, USDT, USDC, BTC, and EUR is available on the exchange, but not to users in the UK, the European Economic Area, or Canada. Kraken Pro offers perpetual XMR/USD futures to clients outside the US. For Americans, the exchange offers Monero futures through CME via its Kraken Derivatives US subsidiary.
The restrictions were introduced gradually. XMR trading was suspended for UK clients in November 2021, for the entire European Economic Area on October 31, 2024, and for Canadians on September 2, 2025. In Europe, users could withdraw their coins until December 31, 2024, after which any remaining balances were converted to bitcoin. The exchange cited regulatory pressure. This means that questions about XMR withdrawals are being sent to users in regions where the coin is still traded on Kraken.
Kraken is not alone in its wariness toward the coin. For example, Binance delisted XMR in February 2024, saying the cryptocurrency no longer met the exchange’s standards.
How the community reacted
The post’s author is convinced that the first two questions are a pretext, and that the exchange is really interested in the third one, about the purpose of the XMR. According to the author, such a letter may mean that withdrawals from the account have already been blocked. They also claim that complaints about exchange accounts being frozen have become more frequent.
Other users described similar experiences. One commenter wrote that Bitfinex asked them for the source of funds for a USDT deposit right after their only Monero withdrawal. They have been trading for years and do not understand how to prove the origin of money earned through trades.