Hacker money laundering triggers buying spree, XMR surges 80% to a new high mystery

Privacy coin Monero (XMR) defied the trend amid mainstream market fluctuations, reaching a historic high of $797.73 on January 15. According to well-known on-chain investigator ZachXBT, nearly 80% of this astonishing surge was not simply due to renewed market confidence in privacy technology, but most likely related to a recent large-scale theft involving up to $282 million.

On January 10, 2026, around 11 pm UTC, a victim lost over $282 million worth of LTC & BTC due to a hardware wallet social engineering scam.

The attacker began converting the stolen LTC & BTC to Monero through multiple instant exchanges, causing the XMR price to spike sharply.

BTC was also…

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) January 16, 2026

Social engineering scam funds converted to Monero, XMR surges nearly 80%

According to ZachXBT’s on-chain analysis, this price rally can be traced back to a social engineering attack on January 10, which resulted in the victim losing over $282 million in Bitcoin (BTC) and Litecoin (LTC). After the attack, the perpetrator did not choose to hold these easily traceable assets long-term but instead rapidly converted the stolen funds into Monero (XMR) via multiple instant exchange platforms and cross-chain protocols (such as Thorchain). The massive influx of buy orders within a short period far exceeded the market’s daily liquidity capacity, directly causing XMR’s price to soar from around $450 to nearly $800.

On-Chain Transparency and the Game of Privacy Coins

This incident profoundly reflects the current technological contest within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. As blockchain analysis firms like Chainalysis improve their techniques, the fund flows of Bitcoin and Ethereum have become highly transparent. For hackers, these mainstream assets are no longer safe havens. Monero, with its Ring Signatures and Stealth Addresses, effectively breaks the on-chain link between sender and receiver, making it the preferred route for illegal funds to be “laundered.” The dramatic price volatility this time is actually a result of hackers paying high slippage costs to evade tracking, known as the “privacy premium.”

CEX Delists XMR, Hyperliquid Launches Perpetual Contracts

From a macro perspective, this incident also exposes the liquidity fragmentation issue in the privacy coin market. Due to regulatory pressures from authorities in regions like Dubai and some EU countries, many major centralized exchanges (CEXs) have delisted Monero, leading to a significant contraction in its compliant liquidity. However, when rigid illegal fund demands flow into less regulated markets or decentralized trading channels with lower liquidity, it can easily trigger severe price distortions.

Meanwhile, Hyperliquid’s launch of Monero perpetual contracts demonstrates that even if mainstream platforms lack spot liquidity, market interest in Monero remains strong.

This article “Hackers’ Money Laundering Sparks Buying Surge, XMR Rises 80% to New Highs” first appeared on Chain News ABMedia.