monero

According to Decrypt, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that a Canadian man has been extradited to the United States, facing charges of assisting in the intrusion of university computers, stealing login credentials, and secretly mining cryptocurrency.A federal grand jury in the Western District of New York indicted 35-year-old Ryan James Roach, a resident of Saskatchewan, and 41-year-old Mathiew James Stubbings, a resident of Ontario, on charges including conspiracy to obtain and damage protected computer information, obtaining protected computer information, and intentionally damaging protected computers, which could result in a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.The indictment shows that between June 2016 and December 2019, the two targeted U.S. educational institutions with supercomputers, first researching their cybersecurity weaknesses before executing the intrusions. Once inside the systems, they allegedly deployed malware, stole login credentials, and forced the victims' computers to mine for them.Victims included institutions in New York, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Massachusetts. The two reportedly used virtual private servers registered under false names in multiple countries to send malware and mining programs and store stolen credentials, while also forwarding attacks through other victims' compromised computers to hide their identities.Roach was extradited from Canada on October 28 and was arraigned in Rochester, New York, where he is currently detained awaiting a detention hearing. Extradition proceedings for Stubbings are still ongoing in Canada. This case falls under cryptocurrency hijacking, where attackers use others' computers to mine, leaving the victims to bear the electricity costs and suffer performance degradation. The Department of Justice did not specify the particular cryptocurrencies mined by the two.Google's Threat Intelligence team released a report on Monday stating that attackers are expected to increasingly prioritize LLMjacking over traditional resource thefts like cryptocurrency hijacking, which involves hijacking corporate access to AI models and shifting the billing.

According to The Defiant, the Monero exchange service Wagyu has confirmed a data breach, with the leaked content involving Monero exchange order records.Cybersecurity company Hudson Rock discovered that the breach includes 4,580 orders, which associate public chain recharge transactions, Monero receiving addresses, and customer IP addresses.

According to The Defiant, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has canceled the questionnaire requirement for Monero withdrawals, and XMR remains listed on the platform.Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi stated that asking customers how they will use the withdrawn tokens is unacceptable. The exchange will still retain the review of the source of funds.Previously, Kraken required some users withdrawing XMR to answer enhanced due diligence questions, including explaining the reason for the transaction and the expected use of XMR after withdrawal.

According to AI Aunt's monitoring, the smart money that heavily bet on Monero (XMR) since August 9 has completely liquidated all 36,000 XMR on October 20, ultimately making a profit of approximately 3.441 million USD, with an average purchase price of about 383.23 USD and an average selling price of about 513 USD.However, Monero surged 12% today, reaching a three-month high. If that address continues to hold, its position could gain an additional potential profit of about 4.77 million USD. Although this transaction has realized considerable gains, leaving the market two days early also caused it to miss out on subsequent increases.

The famous trader and chart analyst Peter Brandt, who successfully predicted the Bitcoin crash in 2018, released a technical chart for XMR (Monero), indicating that the current Monero pattern is very similar to the pattern of silver before it surged to $125, potentially brewing a similar large-scale upward trend.In the monthly chart of XMR he published, after a long period of consolidation, the price repeatedly tests/breaks through the key resistance (approximately in the 500--600 range), and the moving average structure is also starting to strengthen.

Decentralized exchange THORChain announced that native Zcash swaps are now live, allowing users to exchange ZEC with assets on other supported blockchains without relying on wrapped tokens or centralized exchanges. This launch follows the protocol's 3.20 update, which introduced support for Zcash and Monero. At that time, the liquidity in the Zcash pool exceeded $50,000, and the network has begun processing real ZEC swaps.The pool is currently in a soft launch phase, with performance being monitored. If vulnerabilities or other issues arise, trading may be temporarily paused. The current pool size can easily support five-figure trades, while larger trades will experience higher slippage and slower settlement until liquidity increases. When the fee-to-depth ratio is sufficiently high, the protocol's own liquidity will automatically join the Zcash pool. This mechanism was introduced with the 3.20 upgrade, allowing the protocol to deploy a portion of liquidity fees (initially set at 20%) to supported liquidity pools.After integration, ZEC holders can swap their native assets with supported assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and stablecoins without needing to deposit Zcash with a centralized custodian or convert it into wrapped assets on other networks. Zcash brings the total number of native blockchains in THORChain's cross-chain liquidity network to 14, with swaps settled in native assets on their respective chains, rather than transferring assets through cross-chain bridges or requiring users to relinquish custody.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts has filed a civil forfeiture lawsuit seeking to seize 110,300 USDT from a Binance account. The case involves phishing text messages impersonating Coinbase, which led to the theft of 33.7 bitcoins from a beneficiary and their family trust within the same Coinbase account, valued at approximately $900,000 at the time.Investigators stated that from June 5 to June 15, 2023, 11.2 stolen bitcoins were traced to the Binance account, which were then quickly exchanged for Monero. When the FBI requested to freeze the account, it held approximately 758.55 Monero; Binance transferred 110,300 USDT to a government-controlled wallet on August 3, 2026.

The hacker group "iamnotavillain" attacked Revolut and demanded 6,000 Monero as ransom, threatening to sell the data of at least 680 customers to the dark web if payment was refused.

On-chain investigator ZachXBT posted on X accusing user "Mr Austin Fine" (account "@xmrfine") of exchanging the stolen cryptocurrency assets of victim Malone for luxury goods in exchange for fees, stating that he "may be a whistleblower." ZachXBT indicated that until the victim is compensated, he will consider him "disassociated," which will negatively impact all current and future brand collaborations.ZachXBT later added that he has traced part of the funds on-chain flowing through Monero to purchase cars from the luxury car dealer TBTFW in Los Angeles.

According to The Hacker News, the Netherlands National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has warned that a recently patched severe authentication vulnerability (CVE-2026-65400, CVSS score 9.8) in Apple's macOS screen sharing component has been exploited in the wild, allowing attackers to access Macs exposed to the internet (port 5900) and implant Monero mining software without valid credentials.Apple has fixed the vulnerability with an emergency update on August 6, alongside macOS Tahoe 26.6.1, Sequoia 15.7.9, and Sonoma 14.8.9, by enhancing credential verification through improved state management. The NCSC confirmed that in multiple attacks, the attackers gained root access and deployed mining software. Security researcher @osxreverser disclosed another pre-authentication vulnerability in the same component (also patched in 26.6), which allows bypassing password authentication with just the target IP, without needing a username.According to Calif, researchers developed usable attack programs for both vulnerabilities using AI in just 4 hours, demonstrating that AI is significantly shortening the time from vulnerability discovery to the development of attack code. Users are advised to update their systems immediately; if unable to update, they should disable the screen sharing feature.

According to monitoring by ZachXBT, the address starting with TA6YHq received 120.2 million USDT on the Tron chain, then transferred over 12 million dollars to a Kucoin deposit address, and moved 8 million dollars to several instant exchanges. This entity created Monero orders, causing its price to briefly surge from 330 dollars to 420 dollars. Additionally, over 8 million dollars was transferred from Tron to Bitcoin and Ethereum via Near Intents.Previously, it was reported that Tether froze 72 million USDT in the address starting with TBzrPE, which is directly related to TA6YHq.

According to CoinDesk, security engineer Taylor Hornby, who discovered a serious vulnerability in Zcash using the Anthropic Opus 4.8 AI model, stated that Monero (XMR) has been added to the audit queue, and more privacy coin projects will undergo security reviews in the future.Hornby previously discovered a critical vulnerability in the Zcash Orchard privacy pool on May 29, which had gone unnoticed since May 2022 and could theoretically allow attackers to create unlimited undetectable fake ZEC. The development team at Shielded Labs completed an emergency fix before June 1 and subsequently disclosed the details of the vulnerability. As a result of the incident, ZEC dropped by as much as 38% within 24 hours after the news broke, with the market concerned that attackers may have exploited the vulnerability to steal funds from the privacy pool without leaving on-chain traces.Hornby stated that he was commissioned by the nonprofit organization Shielded Labs in April of this year to identify protocol vulnerabilities before attackers could exploit them. Although he had the means to profit from the vulnerability, he chose to report the issue to the development team, stating that "such betrayal is unacceptable." Additionally, Hornby plans to apply for funding from the Zcash community to support subsequent security research efforts.

The privacy coin project Monero has released the graphical wallet software GUI 0.18.5 "Fluorine Fermi." This version is the officially recommended update, focusing on fixing multiple vulnerabilities.The core optimization content of this update includes: adjusting the P2Pool installation path on Windows systems to the local application data directory; improving the parsing logic for extreme scenarios of the uniform resource identifier; disabling the offline transaction creation feature under long payment ID mode; adding unsafe text escaping handling in the QR code scanning process; synchronously upgrading the P2Pool program to version 4.15 and correcting multiple minor program faults.Monero officials point out that this version has been open-sourced on GitHub, and users can download the upgrade through official channels to obtain the latest security fixes and stability improvements.

The privacy coin project Monero has released the graphical wallet software GUI version 0.18.5 "Fluorine Fermi". This update is a recommended upgrade version, mainly containing a large number of bug fixes and functionality optimizations.Key highlights of this update include: migrating the P2Pool installation path to LocalAppData on Windows systems, fixing boundary case issues in URI parsing, prohibiting the creation of offline transactions in long payment ID scenarios, escaping untrusted text in QR code scanning to enhance security, upgrading P2Pool to v4.15, and multiple detail bug fixes and stability improvements.Monero's official team stated that this version has been open-sourced on GitHub, and users can download the upgrade through official channels to obtain the latest security fixes and stability improvements.

According to Cointelegraph, a recent study by TRM Labs shows that despite mainstream cryptocurrency exchanges delisting privacy coins, the activity of Monero remains stable. Research data indicates that transaction usage in 2024 and 2025 is still higher than levels before 2022.TRM Labs noted in its analysis of market trends and underlying network infrastructure that demand has not waned even after many large trading platforms removed or restricted the token due to traceability issues. In 2024, mainstream platforms, including Binance and Kraken, have successively delisted or gradually phased out Monero for compliance reasons. This year, Dubai's financial regulatory authority has prohibited licensed platforms in the Dubai International Financial Centre from listing Monero, Zcash, and other privacy coins, further increasing the pressure.The findings also reveal that Bitcoin remains the preferred currency for real-world ransomware payments. Ransomware operators typically request Monero and sometimes even offer discounts, but victims still tend to pay with Bitcoin. However, the dark web market seems to be evolving in the opposite direction. Researchers found that among new markets launched in 2025, 48% only support Monero, a significant increase compared to previous years.

According to CoinGecko data, the market capitalization of Monero (XMR) has surpassed 10 billion USD, currently reaching 10,745,315,844 USD, setting a new record. The current circulating supply of XMR tokens is 18,446,744, with a 24-hour trading volume hitting 382,607,691 USD.Additionally, according to Coinglass data, the total open interest for XMR contracts across the network has exceeded 200 million USD, also setting a historical high, with a 24-hour open interest increase of 60.07%.

Monero price rose above $567 on Sunday, setting a new all-time high. This increase continues the trend that began at the end of last year, when the privacy token demonstrated stronger resilience than the overall cryptocurrency market.Although Monero has broken through the 2017 bull market cycle high after eight years, Ryan McMillin, Chief Investment Officer of Merkle Tree Capital, stated that the concentration of liquidity due to privacy coins primarily trading on offshore exchanges could lead to fragmented price discovery and amplify volatility, making investors wary of short-term price manipulation risks.

According to CoinDesk, the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC) has surpassed the long-dominant Monero (XMR) in market capitalization, which may signify a power shift in the privacy coin sector. ZEC's market cap first exceeded XMR last Friday, remaining above its predecessor for several hours after a nearly 50% increase in the previous seven days.Throughout the weekend, ZEC maintained its lead, with its market cap reaching as high as $7.2 billion, while XMR hovered around $6.3 billion. Recently, both have had market caps of approximately $6.4 billion. Zcash was launched in 2016, while Monero was created in 2014.The biggest difference between the two lies in their privacy mechanisms: Zcash employs an optional privacy mode, allowing users to choose between transparent or encrypted (shielded) transactions; Monero has all transactions encrypted by default, lacking any choice. This flexibility makes Zcash more readily accepted by traders and institutions, especially those looking to balance privacy with compliance. In contrast, Monero has been delisted from several mainstream trading platforms due to anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) issues.