Monero spikes to $438 as $120M USDT laundering maze…

Monero surged to an intraday high of $438 this week after an unknown entity routed roughly $120 million in USDT through a complex chain of swaps that included large purchases of the privacy coin. The buy pressure was enough to lift XMR from around $330 to a peak near $438 before it settled back to approximately $382, up about 8% on the day — a stark illustration of how thin Monero liquidity can translate a single large order into a double-digit price move.

Why it matters

Onchain investigator ZachXBT traced the flow in a Friday Telegram broadcast, identifying the origin as a 120.2 million USDT deposit on the Tron network. From there the funds were fragmented: more than $12 million landed at KuCoin deposit addresses, roughly $8 million went through instant swap services that typically operate without identity checks, and another $8 million crossed from Tron onto Bitcoin and Ethereum via Near Intents, a cross-chain swap tool. The pattern — rapid conversion into a privacy coin, instant swaps, and cross-chain hops — is a textbook laundering playbook designed to break the transaction trail.

Market impact

Tether moved to contain the damage by blacklisting an address holding $72 million in USDT linked to the activity, rendering those tokens immovable. The freeze underscores the centralised kill-switch that Tether retains over USDT — a double-edged feature that critics cite as a centralisation risk but that regulators and compliance teams increasingly rely on as a first-response tool. The remaining funds and their ultimate origin are still unaccounted for, and the episode is likely to renew regulatory scrutiny of privacy coins and no-KYC swap services.