Privacy coin Monero (XMR) has recently gained attention, reaching a historical high of $797.73 during intraday trading on January 15, an increase of nearly 80%. At first glance, it may seem that the market has suddenly regained confidence in privacy technology, but the reality might be more complicated.

According to on-chain investigator ZachXBT's tracking, behind this surge lies a significant incident—on the evening of January 10 (UTC), a user suffered a substantial loss due to a social engineering attack, with hackers successfully stealing $282 million worth of Bitcoin and Litecoin.

The key point is that after acquiring this large sum, the hackers did not immediately dump the assets. Instead, they gradually converted the stolen BTC and LTC into Monero (XMR) through multiple instant exchange platforms. This conversion process directly boosted XMR's trading volume and price, meaning that nearly 80% of the increase was actually a chain reaction of this massive "laundering" operation.

This case is somewhat ironic—while the core value of privacy coins lies in transaction anonymity, this price surge was driven by someone leveraging that feature to transfer stolen assets. The deviation between market price trends and actual demand warrants careful consideration by investors.