Monero Price Surges After Wallet Holding 3,250 BTC Is Hacked

Observers of crypto prices may have noticed that Monero (XMR) exploded by about $100 this morning. The reason likely lies in a Bitcoin whale being hacked, with the hacker exchanging the Bitcoin for Monero.

Many people rack their brains day in and day out, trying to figure out why prices rise or fall. Sometimes it’s due to central bank interest rates, other times it’s because of patterns seen in the charts. But often, it’s the trivial reasons that can cause the most dramatic swings in price.

Such was the case this morning with Monero (XMR). The privacy coin had been trading between $200 and $230 all year, appearing almost remarkably stable compared to Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Then, around three in the morning on Monday, the price broke out massively. In just 20 minutes, it surged to $299, then retreated a bit, climbed to a peak of $338, then dropped back down, and now, at this very moment, sits at $268.

Monero price over the past 24 hours according to coinmarketcap.com

However, this breakout this morning likely wasn’t a continuation of an overall stable price trend that one might optimistically interpret. At least, that’s what blockchain analyst ZachXBT claims:

“Nine hours ago a suspicious transfer was made from a potential victim for 3520 BTC ($330.7M).” Shortly thereafter, „the funds began to be laundered via 6+ instant exchanges and was swapped for XMR causing the XMR price to spike 50%.”

The wallet address bc1qcrypchnrdx87jnal5e5m849fw460t4gk7vz55g is difficult to interpret. On April 27, it received around 3,520 Bitcoin from a total of 50 other addresses. Only a short time later, the wallet was emptied in four transactions. If you trace these transactions back, you only end up with further transactions that are, at first glance, largely unremarkable, as they too empty addresses holding large sums.

According to ZachXBT—who likely has a different set of analytical tools—the owner of the address was a long-term holder who had already been a user at Gemini, River, and Coinbase. The $330 million in Bitcoin sitting in the wallet was moved in one swift blow and sent in small portions to instant exchanges, where they were swapped for Monero (XMR) in hundreds of orders via atomic swaps (meaning fully trustless, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trades that do not require an intermediary). The transaction and swap fees alone amounted to a seven-digit figure.

Given this context, ZachXBT assumes this was a theft, probably through social engineering. A hacker—or perhaps an ordinary thief operating in the physical world—somehow managed to gain access to the wallet of a Bitcoin whale.

Of course, one could also speculate that the whale hacked themselves, perhaps to avoid a tax payment, to launder tainted coins associated with previous hacks, and so forth. But if it is as ZachXBT assumes, a straightforward theft with no hidden motives, then today is likely to be a very bitter day for one Bitcoiner.