By the morning of April 28, the quotes of the Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency increased by more than 45% within a few hours, to a level of about $ 320 — this is the maximum since May 2021. XMR trading volumes exceeded $300 million per day against an average of about $50 million over the previous week.
On April 28, the price of XMR dropped to $270 per coin, which is still an increase of more than 17% over the past day, according to Coingecko. The absolute price maximum of XMR was recorded in January 2018 at a level above $480.
The largest cryptocurrencies in the confidential sector include blockchain projects such as Dash (DASH) and Zcash (ZEC): their price also jumped amid the growth of XMR, by about 13% each.
The Monero cryptocurrency is the largest cryptocurrency by capitalization (about $5 billion), developed for anonymous transactions. Coins from this category allow users to conduct transactions confidentially and anonymously.
Due to the high anonymity of the coin, financial regulators from different countries impose bans on its circulation. Because of this, many major crypto exchanges, including Binance, OKX and Bybit, had to abandon the listing of Monero.
This happened after the intergovernmental Organization against Money Laundering (FATF) ordered all cryptocurrency exchange services to comply with the procedures of CFT (countering the financing of terrorism) and AML (combating money laundering). Due to the peculiarities of the Monero architecture, it is impossible to comply with these requirements.
Despite the complicated history with the removal of XMR trading pairs on some major exchanges, Monero remains in the top 30 cryptocurrencies by capitalization. The token continues to be traded on Kraken, Bitfinex and KuCoin. XMR also has a capitalization share of about 70% among all similar coins, according to Coingecko.
In mid-April, the industry criticized Binance for the possible delisting of Cash, which also refers to anonymous cryptocurrencies, despite the fact that the exchange had already removed a number of trading pairs with XMR in early 2024.
The creator of Zcash, Zuko Wilcox, wrote that the project should not be on the same list as "dead tokens and scam."
In another post, Wilcox addressed Richard Teng, the head of the exchange, directly: "Do you want your children to live in peace and prosperity, or in the Black Mirror series?"
According to Coindesk, Charles Guillaume from the Ledger crypto wallet development company and Ethan Buchman from the Cosmos blockchain project also spoke sharply: they emphasized the importance of privacy in the field of cryptocurrencies.
Barry Silbert, head of the Digital Currency Group, whose structure manages the Grayscale Zcash Trust investment fund, also joined the criticism. Silbert published several posts supporting ZEC and dissatisfaction with Binance's decision.
Hack Monero
Montero has become a kind of cult cryptocurrency for its technologies that ensure the anonymity of user transactions. There was an episode in the history of the project when, in 2020, the US Internal Revenue Service offered $625,000 to companies seeking to "crack" Monero's privacy.
Subsequently, the government entered into deals with Chainalysis, a company involved in tracking data in various blockchains, as well as Integra FEC, a company involved in forensic data analysis.
Despite this, there is no evidence that someone has "hacked" Monero's privacy. It is also worth noting that not all privacy coins are as anonymous as Monero. For example, ZEC has mechanisms for disclosing transactions at the user's request.
The ability of the Monero blockchain to hide transaction details does not lead to its use for criminal purposes — the coin is not usually used to launder large amounts. According to the head of cybercrime research at Chainalysis, criminals are increasingly returning to bitcoin as the main cryptocurrency due to the growing liquidity problems of assets such as Monero.
For example, according to the Chainalysis report for 2024, 63% of crypto transfers for criminal purposes were made in stablecoins.
The rest of the transactions were divided almost equally by bitcoin and altcoins. Approximately the same pattern was observed in 2022 and 2023. And Monero was not included in the report at all.
What is the reason for the growth?
The well-known crypto asset ZachXBT linked the growth of Monero to a suspicious transaction worth about 3,520 BTC ($330 million) made on Sunday. According to him, the funds were stolen and promptly converted to Monero through several crypto exchanges. Thus, the growth is explained by low liquidity, due to which large transactions can significantly affect the price.
Analysts also noted that there are less expensive ways to exchange bitcoins for Monero, which the holder could use if the transactions were not theft.
"Such purchases are unprofitable for an ordinary person," ZachXBT noted, adding that participants in the exchange of bitcoins for Monero will lose seven—figure amounts only on commissions.
