ZachXBT flags suspicious $330M Bitcoin transfer triggering Monero surge

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Onchain sleuth ZachXBT has flagged a suspicious transportation involving 3,520 Bitcoin (BTC) (valued astatine $330.7 million) that whitethorn bespeak a large theft. The transaction, reported connected April 28, saw funds moved from a imaginable victim’s wallet to the code bc1qcry...vz55g.

Following the transfer, the stolen stash was rapidly laundered done implicit six instant exchanges and swapped into privacy-focused cryptocurrency Monero (XMR).

The large-scale conversion led to a crisp 50% spike successful XMR’s price, with the token reaching an intraday precocious of $339, according to information from CoinMarketCap.

At the clip of writing, XMR has settled somewhat but remains up 25% successful the past 24 hours, trading astatine $289.

When asked whether North Korea’s Lazarus Group was down the attack, ZachXBT dismissed the theory, stating it was “highly probable it’s not,” suggesting autarkic hackers were responsible.

Vast bulk of hackers usage mainstream cryptos

In a caller remark to Cointelegraph, Chainalysis noted that astir transgression transactions inactive trust connected mainstream cryptocurrencies.

“While determination are concerns of much criminals moving to privateness coins for anonymity, the immense bulk of transgression enactment inactive uses mainstream cryptocurrencies, specified arsenic Bitcoin, Ethereum and stablecoins,” Chainalysis said.

The steadfast added that these assets stay charismatic due to the fact that they connection the aforesaid benefits to atrocious actors arsenic they bash to morganatic users — cross-border functionality, instant settlement, and precocious liquidity.

Chainalysis noted that privateness coins airs limitations for criminals owed to reduced liquidity and the information that galore large exchanges person delisted assets similar Monero.

“Cryptocurrency is lone utile if you tin bargain and merchantability goods and services oregon currency retired into fiat, and that is overmuch much hard with privateness coins, particularly arsenic galore mainstream exchanges person offboarded the usage of privateness coins, specified arsenic Monero,” they explained.

The steadfast adjacent said that blockchain transparency allows instrumentality enforcement to hint and retrieve illicit funds, careless of the cryptocurrency used.

In 2024, a leaked Chainalysis video suggested that Monero transactions could beryllium traceable contempt the privacy-preserving quality of the blockchain.

The video reportedly showed however Chainalysis could way transactions backmost to 2021 via its ain “malicious” Monero nodes.

Monero accepted astatine Spar stores successful Switzerland

The suspected laundering cognition comes arsenic Monero is gaining wider retail acceptance. Two Spar supermarket locations successful Switzerland precocious began accepting XMR for payments.

The announcement, shared by Monero’s authoritative X account, credits partnerships with DFX Swiss and OpenCryptoPay for enabling the integration.

One user, posting connected April 25, shared their acquisition of purchasing integrated cacao utilizing XMR astatine a Spar store successful Kreuzlingen.

In April 2025, Spar archetypal tapped into the crypto marketplace by introducing Bitcoin payments done the Lightning Network astatine outlets successful Zug, Switzerland.

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