There is something that stands out on the suspicious transfer of Monday of more than 3,520 BTC ($ 330.7 million) to the Mono Privacy Currency (XMR), a conversion that Zachxbt said of Blockchain that was probably linked to a trick: coordinated activity in the derivative market.
Monero, which darkens the addresses of the sender and the recipient to provide a currency impossible to track, has a limited liquidity in the exchanges, which makes users difficult to make transactions without affecting the market and exposes them to slide, the possibility that the price changes for worse before the agreement is finalized.
The decision to go through an ilequida cryptocurrency is unusual. Tether’s USDT or Ether (eth) would have provided an easier way to move the funds, and mixers such as tornado cash could help darken the transaction route. Of course, stable as USDT are also easier to intercept and freeze.
Commercial data, however, suggest that there was more than a simple case of someone tried to wash stolen funds.
The possible hacker probably found a slip during the transaction. The combined depth of the market, which measures the liquidity of the order book in a given price range, was relatively low in around $ 1 million for 2% on both sides of the book. XRM increased by 45% due to limited liquidity in exchanges, which means that they could have lost up to 20%, $ 66 million, buying XMR instead of a more liquid token.
For a more complete image, take a look at the derivative markets. While Monero was increasing, the open interest, the number of future earrings and options contracts, in XMR in the main centralized exchanges doubled with more than $ 35.1 million, according to Cinalyze.
A 45% increase in the price of XMR should have increased open interest only to $ 24.2 million instead of the figure in which it ended. Taking into account the $ 1 million in liquidations, someone or some people, they already had a lot of time in XMR for a sum of $ 11 million.
While the increase in the price in that possession would not have compensated for the total amount of slippage, it would help soften the blow. In addition, the figure does not take into account the positions that could have existed in decentralized exchanges, and let’s not forget that the funds were probably stolen first, so the perpetrators (assumptions) are still a couple of millions of dollars ahead.
This is not the first time that bad actors flood stains to move the derived needle. Last month, a merchant manipulated the prices of the gelatin in Hyperliquid of decentralized exchange. They bought gelatin in ilequid exchanges, cheating the price oracle to feed an inaccurate price to hyperlycide and, therefore, generate profits for holders of long positions.
Both cases draw similarities with the exploitation of $ 114 million in the mango markets in 2022, which involved a merchant named Avi Eisenberg who manipulated Mngo prices when borrowed active using poor profits obtained as guarantees. Eisenberg was convicted by a jury in 2024 and faces 20 years in prison.
