Monero Surges Amid Privacy Coin Rally and Revolut Ransom News
Monero's price surged by 4.32% over the past 15 hours, driven by a combination of sector rotation into privacy coins and attention from a high-profile ransom story.
The catalyst for this rally was Zcash's (ZEC) sharp 15-20% gain in 24 hours to around $1,388 following its Network Upgrade 7, which reduces block times and locks in its halving schedule.
This sparked a sector rotation into privacy coins, with the broader privacy-coin sector adding about 7% in market cap to around $52 billion, significantly outperforming the broader crypto market's 1.3% rise.
Initially, Monero underperformed this rally, but as traders rotated into the 'other' big name in the privacy theme, XMR began to catch up, moving from about $503.31 to $525.03 over the last ~15 hours.
The Revolut ransom story, which specified payment in 6,000 XMR (about $3 million), also amplified trading interest and reinforced Monero's position as the privacy asset of choice for high-stakes actors.