Monero, the leading privacy-focused cryptocurrency, surged to its highest level in four years as demand rose.
Monero (XMR) jumped to $350, bringing its year-to-date gains to 75% and pushing its market cap above $6.3 billion. It has rallied over 155% in the past 12 months, making it one of the top-performing large-cap cryptocurrencies.
The surge has occurred despite the fact that major crypto exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, OKX, and Crypto.com do not currently list the token. These platforms delisted Monero due to its strong privacy features, which raised potential legal risks.
These legal concerns intensified after U.S. authorities sanctioned Tornado Cash and arrested its founder, alleging the protocol facilitated illicit transactions and money laundering involving over $7 billion.
Monero’s price started rising after the US scrapped its sanctions against Tornado Cash after a court order. The rally is likely because traders anticipate some exchanges relisting it this year. In addition to the ruling, the Trump administration is also highly supportive of the industry.
Monero also rallied recently after it was used to launder stolen Bitcoins worth over $330 million. Hackers prefer Monero because its technology uses ring signatures, stealth addresses, and ring confidential transactions.
In ring signatures, transactions are grouped with other potential senders, making it hard for a transaction to be tracked. In stealth addresses, it generates a unique one-term address for every transaction, and in ring confidential transactions, it hides the transaction amount.
XMR price technical analysis
The daily chart shows that XMR has been in a strong uptrend in recent months. It has moved above all major moving averages, while the Average Directional Index (ADX) has surged to 65.75—a sign of strengthening trend momentum.
However, the Relative Strength Index and Stochastic Oscillator have moved to the extreme overbought level.
As a result, while the bullish trend may continue, there is a risk of a short-term pullback—potentially toward the psychological level of $300. A drop below that level could open the door to further downside toward $240, which marked resistance in January and February. Alternatively, if the uptrend holds, Monero could extend its rally toward the next key psychological level at $400.
