Monero (XMR) Price Surges 40% as Someone Gets Hacked

On-chain researcher ZachXBT may have determined why privacy coin Monero (XMR) surged as much as 40% early Monday: Someone probably got hacked.

On-chain researcher ZachXBT may have uncovered the reason behind privacy coin Monero's (XMR) staggering 40% surge early Monday—a massive hack.

According to the researcher, seven-chain activity metrics and on-chain volumes didn't necessarily correlate with the rapid price gains seen in the past 24 hours.

However, at 1:07 AM (UTC) a suspicious transfer was made from a potential victim for 3520 BTC ( $330.7M)

Theft address:bc1qcrypchnrdx87jnal5e5m849fw460t4gk7vz55g

Shortly after the funds began to be laundered via 6+ instant exchanges and was swapped for XMR causing the XMR price to spike.

Monero price chart 15-minute time-frame.

The buying pressure ultimately pushed prices up by over 40% in the 15-minute chart. By 2:15 AM (UTC), the sell orders had dried up.

A lack of liquidity for Monero may have also contributed to the outsized price gains.

Major exchanges delisted XMR in a bid to fight dark net markets. The lack of liquidity would have made any sizeable buy a catalyst for outsized pricing gains.

CoinGecko data shows that the order depth for XMR is significantly smaller than for tokens of similar market cap.

As of press time, XMR is trading for over $300 according to CoinDesk markets data.