Monero Spikes 51% Following Mysterious $333M Bitcoin Transfer—Privacy Coins Love a Good Whiff of Scandal
While regulators were busy drafting another toothless ’crypto oversight’ press release, Monero (XMR) ripped past $200—its highest level since 2022—after blockchain sleuths spotted a suspicious 8,000 BTC shuffle between unknown wallets.
The privacy coin’s surge coincides with Bitcoin’s network congestion hitting ’high priority’ fee territory—because nothing makes traders flock to alternatives like watching $50 vanish into the mempool void.
Meanwhile, institutional analysts remain baffled why an asset designed for untraceability would rally on transparency concerns. Some things even the blockchain can’t explain.
Monero and privacy
Monero is the biggest privacy coin with a $5.3 trillion market cap, ranking as the 27th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Where regular blockchains, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, allow users to view every transaction that has happened on the network—enabling the tracking of funds through wallets—Monero uses a variety of technologies to obfuscate wallet addresses and transactions. As a result, it has become a popular network for malicious actors to hide their tracks on.
In 2020, the IRS offered $625,000 to firms aiming to "crack" Monero’s privacy, subsequently inking deals with blockchain tracing firm Chainalysis and data forensics analysis firm Integra FEC.
There have been cases of criminal Monero users being convicted, despite the network’s stringent privacy.
Last summer, British dark web drug dealer Jack Edward Finney was convicted and his Monero tokens seized. However, the seizure wasn’t due to the police cracking the network, but because Finney transferred the funds to the investigator as part of a confiscation order. UK officials later sold the tokens in what was described by prosecutors as the first UK Monero cryptocurrency payout.
In January 2024, it was reported by local Finnish media that Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation (KRP) had successfully tracked transcations made using Monero. However, a former member of the MAGIC Monero Fund committee, Csilla Brimer, told Decrypt that this wasn’t the whole truth. Instead, she said, investigations were likely able to trace some transcations because of poor operational security from the user.
"If you’re not careful with your operational security and you keep switching between Bitcoin and Monero, you might leak some information," Brimer told Decrypt. "Regulators might use this slip-up to claim they can track Monero."
"Monero is very solid at guarding your transaction details, but it can’t save you from slip-ups in your own security habits,” she added.
