Monero (XMR) has outperformed the crypto market so far this week following what appears to be an attempt to launder stolen Bitcoin (BTC) through the “OG” privacy coin.

Early Monday morning, XMR skyrocketed from $232 to $331 in about eight hours.

In a post on the social media platform X, top on-chain investigator ZachXBT told his 851,000 followers that the spike in XMR appeared to coincide with a “suspicious” transfer out of a Bitcoin wallet.

ZachXBT says the BTC was immediately exchanged for Monero, sparking the rally for XMR.

“Nine hours ago a suspicious transfer was made from a potential victim for 3520 BTC ($330.7M)

Theft address
bc1qcrypchnrdx87jnal5e5m849fw460t4gk7vz55g

Shortly after the funds began to be laundered via 6+ instant exchanges and was swapped for XMR causing the XMR price to spike 50%.”

ZachXBT says the evidence is quite overwhelming that the transfer and subsequent swap to XMR was a hack because the victim was a user of large US exchanges, lost millions to fees, and made a very sudden transfer of $330 million.

“that’s how you know it’s likely a theft

longtime Bitcoin holder
>is a Gemini, River, Coinbase, etc user
>$330M suddenly moved today and transferred in small increments to instant exchanges, creating hundreds of orders
>gonna lose multiple 7 figs to fees / inefficient for normal person to buy like this”

At time of writing, XMR has retraced from its massive rally, currently trading at $263. Bitcoin is flat on the day and up 6.5% in the last week.

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Featured Image: Shutterstock/GreenBelka/wacomka