In late April, Monero (XMR) surged 40%. So what was behind the price hike, and is it still the king of privacy coins in 2025?

April boost

Yahoo! Finance reported that market experts couldn’t quickly see what caused the spike. Metrics like network activity and active wallets “hadn’t risen accordingly”, so it wasn’t initially apparent what had boosted the Monero to USD price.

But then researcher ZachXBT seemed to crack the code. They reported that over 3,500 Bitcoin (BTC), worth over $330 million at the time, was drained from an address, then swapped for Monero.

In short, the price surge was probably due to a large hack. 

On X, ZachXBT noted “a suspicious transfer” and said, “Shortly after the funds began to be laundered via 6+ instant exchanges and were swapped for XMR, causing the XMR price to spike”.  

Monero’s market cap and features

Forbes provides a list of the top privacy coins by market cap, and Monero sits at the top, with a $6.40 billion market value. 

This far exceeds the market cap of the next most popular coins, including Zcash (ZEC), Beldex (BDX), Dash (DASH), Oasis (ROSE), and Decred (DCR).

So what makes Monero popular? The coin employs several privacy-enhancing technologies:

• Ring signatures hide the sender’s identity by mixing their transaction with others.
• Stealth addresses create unique, one-time addresses for each transaction. This hides the recipient’s identity.
• And finally, confidential transactions conceal the amounts transacted.

These features ensure that Monero transactions are private, and distinguish it from certain competitors such as Zcash, where privacy is optional.

Advantages of privacy coins

Privacy coins like Monero are different from traditional cryptocurrencies. Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, which store transactions on a transparent ledger, privacy coins use advanced cryptography to obscure key information.

In Monero’s case, every transaction hides the sender, receiver, and amount by default, providing a higher baseline of anonymity. 

Privacy coins may help shield users from unwanted tracking or financial profiling. In countries where personal financial activity is monitored, these coins may reduce the risk of exposure to oppressive regimes, data breaches, and targeted attacks. While these potential advantages are highlighted by privacy advocates, they raise concerns among regulators about illicit activity.

But some users of privacy coins use them for legitimate conduct. They are simply seeking protection from data mining, targeted advertising, or corporate surveillance.

Business use cases

Businesses may benefit from privacy coins to protect competitive information. For example, a privacy coin may help conceal sensitive business relationships or pricing strategies. Public blockchains can expose supplier details, payroll transactions, and various other business operations. Privacy coins reduce this visibility.

Still, such use cases are constrained by regulations. Most businesses must maintain transaction records for auditing and compliance purposes, naturally limiting their ability to utilize privacy coins.

Fungibility

Another potential advantage of privacy coins is fungibility, the concept of each unit of a currency being interchangeable. With Bitcoin, certain coins may be flagged by exchanges or forensic firms, making them harder to use. Privacy coins prevent this transaction history tracking; all coins are treated equally.

When a coin has been involved in ransomware payments or associated with a sanctioned address, its transaction history can label it as “tainted”. Even if the current holder had no involvement in the coin’s illicit activity, the coin’s past is publicly traceable and may result in consequences for the current holder. 

Monero’s design eliminates the potential for certain coins to be tainted. All coins are identical in value and usability. However, there’s still the potential issue for coins such as Monero to effectively be fungible. If exchanges refuse to service trading, then their potential benefits may cease. 

Regulation of privacy coins

Monero and other privacy coins face regulatory scrutiny due to their privacy features. 

In 2021, when privacy coins were less familiar, the Dutch exchange LiteBit announced it would delist Firo (formerly zcoin). CoinDesk reported that LiteBit said its decision was “partly due to the privacy aspect of this crypto” and that the Netherlands’ crypto regulator had “indicated that cryptocurrencies aimed at privacy are too high a risk.”

Only a few months earlier, ShapeShift had delisted Monero, Zcash, and Dash.

In Australia, there was pressure from regulators and banks to delist privacy coins.

Monero contributor Justin Ehrenhofer said that delisting was “one of the easiest responses for small, compliant cryptocurrency exchanges” who may not have adequate resources to communicate how they mitigate risk.

More recently, in March 2024, Binance delisted Monero. CCN quoted Grayson Earle, co-founder of Bail Bloc, a company that mines Monero: “It should come as no surprise that such an organization can and will, for any reason, make decisions about the assets it deems appropriate to list on its exchange platform.”

Earle implied that governmental authorities naturally track the movements of citizens, so private purchases and financial assets are likely to come under scrutiny.

The Monero hack in more detail

ZachXBT continued reporting on the hack, updating their thread on X.

An April 30 post confirmed that it was a “social engineering theft from an elderly individual in the US.” 

Then, a May 2 update said that $7m+ had been frozen by ZachXBT themselves, the Binance Security team, @tanuki42_, and Cryptoforensic Investigators (@CFInvestigators). 

A following update said that two suspects had been identified and had deleted their social media accounts.

Last word

Monero is still the king of privacy coins by market cap and is far more popular than its competitors. Despite growing regulatory pressure and exchange delistings, Monero’s unmatched privacy features, strong community, and dominant market cap have kept it at the forefront. In 2025, it remains the leading choice for users who value financial confidentiality, whether for personal protection, business discretion, or ideological reasons. For now, at least, Monero’s crown remains firmly in place.