Here’s How Traders Are Pumping Monero (XMR) Prices To 6-Mth Highs

Privacy token Monero (XMR) saw a large price surge in the past 24 hours, and was among the best performing cryptocurrencies. Its latest gains appear to be driven by a liquidity squeeze initiated by some holders of the token.

XMR jumped 10% in the past 24 hours to $267.65- its highest level since late-October. Its 24-hour volumes also doubled to over $400 million.

The token surged as certain holders  withdrew the token from major crypto exchanges in a bid to test the actual XMR supplies of these exchanges.

XMR boosted by the “Monerun”

XMR holders had last week organized a mass withdrawal of tokens from centralized exchanges on Monday, dubbed the Monerun. The plans were covered through a popular post on Reddit, as well as a telegram group associated with the movement.

The Monerun began on April 18, which is the Monero project’s eighth birthday.

Given XMR’s privacy-centric ledger, holders wanted to test whether exchanges were misrepresenting their token reserves. XMR holders argued that the highly anonymized nature of the token meant the only way to test its “real supply” was by initiating a liquidity crunch.

According to data from Coinmarketcap, XMR is the 32nd-largest crypto, with a market cap of $4.8 billion, divided between 18.1 million circulating tokens.

Liquidity test, or pump and dump scheme?

Given that there are few regulations against price manipulation in crypto, the Monerun could also just be a ploy by one group to profit off the price jump.

It remains to be seen whether holders will lock in profits at this stage, which would sharply bring down the price of the token.

XMR’s privacy-centric nature could also mean that the perpetrators behind the Monerun will be difficult to trace. The token is the largest and most popular privacy coin.

Other privacy coins also appeared to be rallying, with XMR competitor Zcash up 14%. Their anonymized nature has made them a contentious topic for regulators, with several countries banning the tokens due to their potential use in money laundering. But privacy proponents argue that privacy coins represent an ideal form of financial privacy.