How a $330M BTC Hacker Could Double Down on Monero Derivatives
Oliver Knight | Edited by Sheldon Rebeck Updated April 29, 2025, 3:20 PM Published April 29, 2025, 1:56 PM
There is something curious about the suspicious transfer of more than 3,520 BTC ($330.7 million) into the privacy cryptocurrency Monero (XMR) that took place on Monday. According to blockchain analyst ZachXBT, the conversion is likely related to hacking: it is a coordinated operation in the derivatives market.
Monero, which hides the sender and receiver addresses to keep transactions anonymous, has limited liquidity on exchanges, making it difficult for users to execute trades without influencing the market and exposing them to the risk of slippage – the possibility of the price changing unfavorably before the trade is completed.
The decision to use an illiquid cryptocurrency seems unusual. USDT or Tether (ETH) could offer a simpler, less slippage-prone way to move funds, and mixers like Tornado Cash could help hide the transaction trail. Of course, stablecoins like USDT are also easier to intercept and freeze.
However, trading data shows that this was more than just an attempt to launder stolen funds.
The hacker likely experienced slippage during the trade. Combined market depth, which measures the liquidity of the order book in a given price range, was relatively low at around $1 million, down 2% on either side of the book. XRM was up 45% due to limited liquidity on exchanges, meaning they could have lost up to 20% — $66 million — by buying XMR instead of the more liquid token.
To get the full picture, it’s worth looking at derivatives markets. While Monero has been rising, open interest — the amount of outstanding futures and options contracts — in XMR on major centralized exchanges has more than doubled to $35.1 million, according to data from Coinalyze.
A 45% increase in the price of XMR would have only pushed open interest to $24.2 million, instead of where it actually was. With $1 million in liquidations, someone or more were already long $11 million worth of XMR.
While the price increase for the asset wouldn’t make up for the entire amount of slippage, it would help mitigate the negative impact. Furthermore, this figure doesn’t take into account any positions that might exist on decentralized exchanges, and it’s worth remembering that the funds were likely stolen in the first place, so the (alleged) criminals are still up a couple million dollars.
This isn’t the first time that scammers have increased spot purchases to move the derivatives needle. Last month, a trader manipulated the price of JELLY on the decentralized
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