Monero Surges 30% Following Hack Involving 120 Million USDT

Monero jumps 30% in hours trinc a hack involving 120 million USDT

Monero, one of the most scrutinized cryptocurrencies by exchanges, saw a sharp rise in value hours after an event unrelated to its technology. An attacker stole 120.2 million USDT, sent it to a Tron wallet, and attempted to convert it into Monero. The order book was so thin that the operation pushed the price up 30% in hours. Tether subsequently froze 72 million. The institutional pursuit of Monero continues; its price action does too.

What peine to the 120.2 million USDT moved into Monero?

On June 11, a Tron address received 120.2 million USDT and, according to tracing information released by ZachXBT, moved over 12 million to KuCoin deposit addresses, 8 million to instant exchanges, and another 8 million in similar operations. The bulk went into Monero. Tether reacted by freezing 72 million before the outflow ended, and within a month, it pulled 514 million dollars from circulation and flagged 370 wallets.

The episode speaks more about USDT than Monero. What was blocked was not the private currency, but the traceable asset used to enter it. This is the same logic that leaves any stablecoin balance subject to the issuer, even in a non-custodial wallet.

Pressure on Monero, Zcash and Dash

Regulatory pressure is real. The thread notes that Kraken has removed Monero from its catalog and Binance has warned it will not accept deposits of Zcash or Dash whose traceability is unclear. European regulations begin applying on the 30th of that same month, and purchases with fiat currency lacking identification have been limited to decentralized avenues: centralized exchanges like MEXC, non-KYC platforms like Nonkyc.io, and peer-to-peer apps like Bisq, Haveno, or Retoswap.

The result is a tight liquidity market. When 120 million enters and the book is thin, the price moves 30%. When the same money leaves, it moves just as quickly downward.

Why Fungibility Protects Monero from Delisting

In Bitcoin, one currency is not worth the same as another. If a transaction drags along funds flagged as suspicious, the platform receiving it may block the entry. The case of a Monero-to-Bitcoin conversion and its subsequent sending to Binance, where the operation was retained, is cited: the argument used is that if even a minimal fraction is contaminated, the entire transaction is flagged.

Monero does not accept that distinction. Its units are interchangeable without a traceable history, making it inconvenient for intermediaries but valuable for those needing to move value without leaving a trace. The data cited in the thread points to about 30,000 daily transactions, compared to 18,000 for Bitcoin Cash and 500,000 for Bitcoin. It is suggested that its issuance will remain lower than BTC's until 2040.

The Quantum Threat to Monero Cryptography

As explained in the thread, the weak flank is not regulatory; it is mathematical. Monero supports much of its security on elliptic curves—Ed25519 and Curve25519—and mechanisms like CLSAG ring signatures, hidden addresses, and RingCT commitments. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer running Shor's algorithm could solve the mathematical problem upon which it rests.

From this comes Seraphis, a transaction protocol abstraction designed by a collaborator of Monero's research lab under the pseudonym 'koe.' Its goal is to replace RingCT to gain privacy, scalability, and efficiency. It has been proposed, but not deployed.

---

Monero has survived for years through excess. Its privacy is so complete that it closes the doors of intermediaries who could provide liquidity; its fungibility is so strict that it leaves no room for control. Whether this virtue keeps it alive or eventually suffocates it remains unknown. For now, every time someone tries to kill it, the price rises.