Privacy coin Monero (XMR) is holding up better than Bitcoin and most top altcoins through the extended crypto bear market, according to a new report at Dailycoin. The report analyzed a number of metrics and compared them to other cryptos, noting that Monero’s 2700% rise since it was supported for the first time by a darknet market in 2016 helped it outpace almost all other coins in terms of growth.
Since then, Monero has become the second most widely used cryptocurrency on darknet markets (after Bitcoin), now supported by almost all markets. On some markets, it is the only method of payment accepted. This has led to a consistent demand for the coin, whose untraceability features give it a persistent value not shared with many other cryptocurrencies.
Despite falling 18% against the dollar since the end of January, Monero is still faring better against Bitcoin than most altcoins in the top 30 over the last year, up 60% in terms of BTC in the last 365 days. This performance is significantly better than that of the top five altcoins over the same period, which include ETH (-0.5%), XRP (-14%), BNB (32%), ADA (-30%), and MATIC (42%).
XMR/BTC price over one year compared to the four largest (non-stablecoin) cryptocurrencies.
The report notes that Monero has faced strong regulatory challenges in the last two years, leading to an overall decline in trading volume. Some of the major exchanges which have delisted the coin during this time include Coinbase, Kraken, Bittrex and Huobi, with only Binance, KuCoin and Crypto.com still supporting it as a trading option. Smaller, unregulated exchanges and swapping services like ChangeNOW (the partner for wallets that offer coin swaps like Exodus and Cake) have picked up the slack in this regard, although total trading volume remains low since the first two months of 2021.
Some countries like Japan and Dubai have banned the use of Monero altogether, forbidding exchanges operating in those countries from listing it and making it illegal for citizens to use the coin for any sort of financial transaction.
While Monero’s decentralized nature and non-traceability by design poses difficulty for regulators in controlling or monitoring its use, the coin continues to face some challenges going forward. This includes the possibility of sanctions for public entities that use XMR in the course of business, or potentially even for application developers that provide services that could be interpreted as used for the purpose of money laundering.