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Monero Price Surge Likely Attributable to Large Hack: ZachXBT

XMR spiked nearly 40% early Monday following a 'suspicious transfer,' the on-chain researcher said.

By Sam Reynolds|Edited by Sheldon Reback

Updated Apr 28, 2025, 2:47 p.m. Published Apr 28, 2025, 8:56 a.m.

Hacker (Pixabay) — Privacy coin monero may have been used to launder proceeds from a hack. (Pixabay)

What to know:

A suspicious transfer of 3,520 BTC, valued at $330.7 million, was swapped for monero (XMR), on-chain researcher ZachXBT said.
The resulting monero price surge was linked to laundering activities through multiple instant exchanges.
Limited liquidity due to exchange delistings amplified the price impact of large XMR purchases.

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

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…
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) April 28, 2025

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ZachXBT reported that 3,520 bitcoin (BTC) ($330.7 million) was drained from an address and then swapped for XMR.

Market data shows a spike in volatility coming from an excess in buy orders for the XMR-BTC order book.

Market observers initially had a hard time determining what caused the major spike as metrics such as active wallets and network activity hadn't risen accordingly.

Liquidity for XMR has been limited during the past few months as major exchanges delisted the privacy token 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.

XMR is trading for over $300 according to CoinDesk markets data.

XMR Monero

Sam Reynolds

Sam Reynolds is a senior reporter based in Asia. Sam was part of the CoinDesk team that won the 2023 Gerald Loeb award in the breaking news category for coverage of FTX's collapse. Prior to CoinDesk, he was a reporter with Blockworks and a semiconductor analyst with IDC.