Source: Cointelegraph
Original: “ZachXBT Marks Suspicious $330 Million Bitcoin (BTC) Transfer, Triggering Monero (XMR) Surge”
On-chain detective ZachXBT recently flagged a suspicious transfer involving 3,520 Bitcoins (BTC), valued at approximately $330.7 million. The transaction occurred on April 28, 2025, with funds moving from a potential victim's wallet to the address bc1qcry…vz55g.
Following the transfer, the stolen funds were quickly laundered through more than six instant exchanges and converted into the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Monero (XMR).
This large-scale conversion led to a sharp 50% increase in XMR's price, with the token reaching a high of $339 within the day, according to CoinMarketCap.
As of now, the XMR price has slightly retreated but is still up 25% in the past 24 hours, trading at $289.
When asked whether North Korea's Lazarus Group was behind the attack, ZachXBT denied the theory, stating it was "unlikely," suggesting that the responsible party could be independent hackers.
In a recent comment to Cointelegraph, Chainalysis noted that most criminal transactions still rely on mainstream cryptocurrencies.
Chainalysis stated, "While there are concerns that more criminals are turning to privacy coins for anonymity, the vast majority of criminal activity still uses mainstream cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH), and stablecoins."
The company added that these assets remain attractive because they offer criminals the same benefits as legitimate users—cross-border functionality, instant settlement, and high liquidity.
Chainalysis pointed out that privacy coins pose limitations for criminals due to lower liquidity, and many major exchanges have delisted assets like Monero.
They explained, "Cryptocurrencies are only useful when they can be used to buy and sell goods or services, or exchanged for fiat currency, which is much more difficult with privacy coins, especially since many mainstream exchanges have stopped using privacy coins like Monero."
The company even stated that the transparency of blockchain allows law enforcement to track and recover illicit funds, regardless of the cryptocurrency used.
In 2024, a leaked Chainalysis video suggested that despite Monero's privacy features, its transactions could still be traced.
The video showed that Chainalysis was able to trace transactions back to 2021 through its own "malicious" Monero node.
As Monero gains wider retail acceptance, this suspicious money laundering operation has come to light. Two Spar supermarkets in Switzerland recently began accepting XMR as a payment method.
This announcement was shared by Monero's official X account, thanking DFX Swiss and OpenCryptoPay for the collaboration that made this integration possible.
A user shared their experience on April 25 of using XMR to purchase organic cocoa beans at a Spar supermarket in Kreuzlingen.
In April 2025, Spar entered the crypto market by introducing Bitcoin payments supported by the Lightning Network at its store in Zug, Switzerland.
Related: Bitget Takes Legal Action Against Accounts Suspected of Manipulating VOXEL Futures Prices
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
