Crypto Markets rose on Monday, with Bitcoin (BTC) above $94,000 and the Coindesk 20, the largest measure of cryptocurrency performance, rising 2.2% by mid-morning Europe.
XRP led major profits, driven by ProShare ETF approval, which will reveal three futures tracking products on April 30th, and rose almost 7%. Cardano’s ADA earned over 3%, while BNB chain added 1%. The ether (ETH) remained unchanged.
One exception to the relatively dormant market was Privacy Coin Monero (XMR). This has skyrocketed by over 40% at a level that is not seen since May 2021.
Trading volumes have grown from an average of $50 million on a seven-day rolling basis to more than $220 million over the past 24 hours.
The behavior may have followed a possible exploit. On-chain research ZachxBT identified a “suspecting transfer” of 3,520 BTC ($330 million) and subsequently replaced it with XMR. Zachxbt said the increase in demand for relatively illiquid tokens has caused prices to skyrocket.
Privacy-centric tokens are based on the CryptoNote protocol and ensure that all transactions cannot be linked and untrackable.
Though sentiment among traders has been carried over from last week, the near long-term bullish view remains, he is cautious when macroeconomic headwinds remain.
“Bitcoin is maintaining a relatively stable range of over $92,000 as Trump’s administration eases tariff policies in the crypto industry,” Jupiter Zheng, partner at Hashkey Capital, Liquid Funds and Requests Research, told Coindesk. “This crypto-friendly attitude can boost Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to develop their own market direction, with less correlation with US stocks, and increase industry growth and innovation.”
The broader stock market showed a mixed movement on Monday. Regional gauges are moving forward by 0.6%, but S&P 500 futures fell by 0.6%, indicating that the four-day US equity rally could snap. Gold released last week’s profits after a record-breaking rally. Hong Kong’s Hangsen index was flat, as was the other major indexes around Asia.
Update (April 28, 9:25 UTC): Add a possible exploit as a reason for XMR surges in the fifth paragraph. Update the price.