"A staggering Bitcoin (BTC) theft could have served as the pivotal boost for Monero's (XMR) 50% upswing"

A staggering Bitcoin (BTC) theft could have served as the pivotal boost for Monero's (XMR) 50% upswing

A staggering Bitcoin (BTC) theft might have served the pivotal boost for Monero’s (XMR) 50% upswing on Monday, a famous on-chain detective claims.

According to ZachXBT, a suspicious transfer for a whopping 3,520 Bitcoin (BTC) was done at approximately 1 AM on Monday morning.

Nine hours ago 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

Worth $330.7 million, the fraudulent Bitcoin (BTC) transfer was later swapped into Monero (XMR), the popular privacy blockchain’s native crypto. The money laundering activity was allegedly done via 6 different crypto currency exchanges, while XMR was likely chosen due to untraceable traits.

Monero (XMR) Price Reacts With Explosion

Tremendous green candle sticks arrived on Monero’s (XMR) price charts a few hours later, with XMR price spiking from $238 to $293 in half an hour at 4 AM GMT, according to CoinGecko. Later on, the dark web darling backtracked to $258 before hitting off to a new yearly high of $347 at 9 AM.

This puts Monero (XMR) as the top gainer of the day among major-cap altcoins, even though the 24-hour trading volume on Spot didn’t record a significant hike, signaling an abnormality. Besides, the $330.7 million money laundering scheme included small increments to instant exchanges, meaning that 1-3% on every transaction was spent on fees.

$XMR up 30% today.

Sounds like it's due to a hack for over 3000 #Bitcoin which they used to buy #MONERO and launder funds.

So does that mean it won't hold and will fall hard or will that not matter?

Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/41i3u8St8t

According to ZachXBT, the obnoxious spending fees contribute towards proving the theft, as these Atomic swaps would be impractical to a regular crypto trader. Naturally, the root of this bull run fo Monero (XMR) price plants a seed of doubt about the sustainability of today’s 50% uptick, as the daily trading volume has kept under $350 million

On top of that, the large holder behavior-tracking Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) returned negative values, signaling that crypto whales are not keen on increasing their XMR positions.

On The Flipside

Why This Matters

Privacy blockchains showcase the true spirit of decentralization, but also impose hefty challenges for authorities when it comes to bad actors exploiting the perks of action concealment.