Monero (XMR) price jumped 51% after an attempt to launder $330 million in bitcoins

The price of privacy coin Monero (XMR) shot up 51% on Monday morning as an attempt to launder 3,520 BTC, worth around $330 million, was noticed.

Online researcher ZachXBT noticed a suspicious transfer of 3,520 BTC (about $333 million) from a potential victim. Shortly after the transfer, these tokens were exchanged for XMR in a few instant exchangers. According to ZachXBT, it was a theft of bitcoins from an old holder with the address bc1qcrypchnrdx87jnal5e5m849fw460t4gk7vz55g.

Amid these events, the price of Monero soared by 51% to reach $347.72. Later, the gains were trimmed, and now XMR is trading at $255.

Monero is the largest privacy coin, boasting a market cap of $4.7 billion. Unlike public blockchains such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, where anyone can view the transaction history, Monero uses technology to obfuscate wallet addresses and transfer details, making it difficult to follow. As a result, Monero is often used by those who wish to conceal their transactions.

In 2020, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced a reward of $625,000 for breaking Monero's privacy mechanisms and signed contracts with analytics company Chainalysis and Integra FEC.

Monero and other tokens of this type have been banned or are about to be banned in many EU countries.

In March, about $28.8 million was stolen as a result of hacker attacks. Only $4.8 million was recovered in the 1inch Resolver incident. Phishing accounted for approximately $4.5 million of the total. The data excluded the theft of $32 million from a Coinbase user.