This ‘Secret’ altcoin is exploding after rumors of European Ban in privacy coins swirl

• Amid the chaos in the crypto space and huge selling pressure, Secret Token (SCRT) managed to pull off a 100 percent rally this week.
• Crypto privacy services providers have been in demand recently amid talks that Europe is planning to ban privacy coins.

Ever since the FTX episode, a gloomy picture has set all across the crypto space. Bitcoin and most of the altcoins have been under massive selling pressure over the last two weeks.

However, in these times of uncertainty, an anonymity-focused altcoin is outperforming the rest of the crypto market amid rumors that Europe is planning to ban privacy coins.

Built atop the Cosmos (ATOM) network Secret (SCRT) is a privacy-centric chain with end-to-end encryption and smart contracts dubbed “Secret Contracts”. The network allows users to make any coin or blockchain private by encrypting details such as sending/receiving wallet addresses, token balances, etc. upon swapping the Secret tokens.

To turn coins of some different blockchains into “Secret Tokens”, the project uses something called Secret Bridges. To convert the coins of other blockchain networks, Secret first parks the coins in a smart contract of the original chain. Later, they mint the equivalent amount of tokens on the Secret Network.

SCRT, the native token of Secret Network has been recently in the news for a strong rally. Earlier this week on Wednesday, the price of SCRT token went parabolic gaining more than 100 percent in just 24 hours shooting all the way from $0.64 to $1.29.

However, SCRT couldn’t sustain the price gains and it has retraced significantly from there. As of press time, SCRT is trading at $0.84 retracing more than 30 percent from its weekly highs.

Growing scrutiny of privacy coins in Europe

Privacy coins have been facing an increasing amount of pressure from regulatory agencies across the world, especially in the US and Europe.

Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – the global regulatory body is looking to enforce the “travel rule” which recommends that the government forces stakeholders like banks, crypto exchanges, hosted wallets, and over-the-counter (OTC) desks to share some identifying information regarding people involved in crypto transactions worth $10,000 or more.

Regulatory agencies have been after the crypto mixing services which can hide details of the original source of transactions. Earlier this year, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the Ethereum-based crypto mixing service Tornado Cash. A few weeks later, the developer behind this open-source protocol was also arrested in the Netherlands which sparked huge criticism from the supporters of crypto privacy.

However, crypto privacy players are giving it back to the regulators. Coin Center, the crypto think tank has recently sued the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for the sanctions. Jerry Brito, the executive director at Coin Center said:

Not only are we fighting for privacy rights, but if this precedent is allowed to stand, OFAC could add entire protocols like Bitcoin or Ethereum to the sanctions list in the future, thus immediately banning them without any public process whatsoever. This can’t go unchallenged.