Monero Price Surge Likely Attributable to Large Hack: ZachXBT

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

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

(Blockchain.com)

(Blockchain.com)

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

(CryptoMeter.io)

(CryptoMeter.io)

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.

Read More: Monero’s XMR Rockets 40% as XRP Leads Crypto Majors Gains

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.