The ancestor of privacy coins — Monero (XMR) suddenly spiked 50% today (28th), briefly breaking through $320, reaching a new high since May 2021. Analysts point out that this surge in XMR is likely related to a Bitcoin theft case amounting to $330 million.

On-chain detective ZachXBT revealed that a 'suspicious transfer' worth 3,520 bitcoins (approximately $330.7 million) occurred this morning, suspected to be related to a large-scale theft.

Image source: X

He pointed out that this large amount of funds was transferred from a wallet of a suspected victim to a new address 'bc1qcry…vz55g', and was quickly dispersed to over six exchanges, then exchanged for XMR to cover the flow of funds.

Due to the large scale of the single exchange and limited market liquidity, the price of XMR surged over 50% in a short period, shocking the market; trading volume also skyrocketed, with the 7-day average trading amount jumping from around $50 million to over $220 million.

According to CoinGecko market data, as of the time of writing, XMR is priced at approximately $308.5, having increased by 35% in the past 24 hours.

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‘The surge was so sudden! Did the sudden 50% increase in Monero have anything to do with the Bitcoin theft case?’ This article was first published on ‘Crypto City’