Monero (XMR) Price Slides As Canada Includes Crypto In Emergencies Act

Monero (XMR) is trading at $172.80, down 4.61% with a low of $171.473 and a high of $183.58 in the last 24 hours.

The crypto has a market capitalization of $3,126,923,853, and a price nearing the $170 resistance threshold.

According to Coindesk’s price research, bearish swings are back, and price increases have been slower than in previous months because of the downward trend.

Monero is going bearish again following a decrease in the XMR/USD market, as a result of negative news coming from Canada.

Monero (XMR) Bullish Indicators

At the time of writing, technical analysis by CoinCodex shows that short-term sentiment on XMR has become neutral, with 17 indicators flashing bullish signs versus 12 bearish signals.

According to TradingView data, the daily simple and exponential moving averages are showing buy signals, while the relative strength index (RSI) was at 55.4 as of February 16.

A reading of 30 or less on the RSI suggests that the market is experiencing an oversell.

XMR total market cap at $2.964 billion in the daily chart | Source: TradingView.com

Related Reading | Monero Featured In Last Week Tonight, Essential Tool In “Ransomware Economy”?

Due to adverse market movement, the cryptocurrency has shown a slow decline. The price has been falling in the previous hours as the negative trend rises.

Experts describe Monero’s overall market position as “less lucrative.”

Canadian Emergencies Act Deals Blow On XMR

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s imposition of the country’s Emergencies Act is taking a heavy toll on several cryptocurrencies, including Monero (XMR).

The crypto joins a list of other key digital assets the Canadian government bans in the face of ongoing protests in Ottawa by the Canadian Freedom Convoy (CFC).

Related Reading | Monero (XMR) Readies For A Breakout As It Touches Important Milestone

Authorities want to reduce the amount of money protesters allegedly utilize, which comes from assets and contributions of digital currencies like Bitcoin, Cardano and Monero.

An emergency measures act has been passed to ban future funding to trucker-based activists who are opposing the country’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Monero (XMR), according to reports, is being used to sponsor the protesters, who have so far received $870,000 to $1.1 million in cryptocurrency donations.

Because of its decentralized status and low charges, a good number of donors choose to pay for their donations using cryptocurrencies such as Monero.

Monero (XMR) Seen To Make Strong Rally

Meanwhile, analysts anticipate that the value of XMR will likely climb between now and the end of 2022.

Based on current data and the coin’s recent successes, the majority of cryptocurrency experts predict that the price of Monero will rise in the near future.

The combination of technology and positive crypto market dynamics gives XMR a strong possibility of becoming one of the most traded cryptocurrencies this year.

Monero is in high demand as a mode of payment on the dark net, primarily because it provides a high degree of anonymity in terms of transactional information.

Featured image from Reddit, chart from TradingView.com

Monero (XMR) Readies For A Breakout As It Touches Important Milestone

Privacy coin Monero (XMR) usually spends its time in the shadows, which is exactly the way its community likes it. Till date, it is still impossible to penetrate the privacy that the digital asset offers, making it the go-to choice for investors who are trying to keep their crypto transactions and holdings a secret. Recently though, the cryptocurrency is breaking out onto the radars of more investors as it shatters an important milestone.

As more crypto users are discovering their transactions are not as hidden as they might have thought, they are moving towards coins like Monero that offers the privacy they desire. This has seen the number of users rise on the blockchain and total transactions carried out has soared, more than doubling in just the first quarter of 2022.

Monero (XMR) Surpasses 20 Million Transactions

Monero is no doubt the leading privacy coin in the crypto space and it has once again proven this with its recent milestone. The coin seems to have exploded in popularity in just the first two months of 2022 as the number of transactions carried out has doubled from 2021. Last year, the number of transactions recorded was sitting at 8.65 million. With less than two months into the new year, the volume of transactions tells a new story.

Related Reading | Bitcoin Hits Two-week High Imitating The Stock Rally

Growing almost 150% in just a matter of months, the number of Monero transactions has crossed 20 million. Data from Blockchair shows that there have been a total of 2,554,175 blocks mined over the lifetime of the privacy digital asset, landing on more than 20,023,000 transactions carried out in the same time period.

This number is important for a digital asset like Monero whose sole utility is being untraceable. It spells more usage from crypto users as they move towards keeping their crypto footprints hidden. It also points towards more adoption of the coin, and as the market rises out of the ashes of the last burn, it may mean significant growth for the digital asset in relation to price.

Growing With The Market

Like most cryptocurrencies, the price of Monero (XMR) had suffered when the market had crashed. This saw the cryptocurrency crashing from its high of almost $525 to the low $140, around which its value has trended for the past week. However, with the recent market recovery going into last weekend, Monero has followed along and has posted a recovery, up 16% in the past 24 hours alone.

Related Reading | Cryptocurrency Wallet Phantom Marks $1.2 Billion Valuation Amid Recent Funding Round

This does not mean that the digital asset is out of the woods though. Sentiments around the cryptocurrency continues to skew greatly in the bearish territory, and sell signals continue to overpower the asset. According to data from Barchat, Monero’s sell indicators have taken hold with 88% pointing towards sell. The 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day MACD Oscillator also point towards sell.

XMR recovers to $176 | Source: XMRUSD on TradingView.com

On the short term though, the 20-day moving average has turned towards buy. Coupled with the increased adoption and growing volume recorded, this trend is expected to continue and drive the price of the digital asset up in its wake. With a strong close above $180 by end of day, next significant support will be at $200, at which point, bulls will be able to sink their claws firmly into the asset.

Featured image from CoinJournal, chart from TradingView.com

Kraken Is Delisting Top Privacy Coin Monero (XMR) For UK Users

It seems UK users will soon be unable to access Monero on one of the leading crypto exchanges. There have always been concerns around the Bitcoin competitor regarding the absolute privacy that the digital asset confers. Until now, it remains impossible to track/trace Monero transactions, making it the ultimate privacy coin, and governments are worried that individuals will use this to evade taxes.

Another concern is around the use of the cryptocurrency as a criminal tool, although there is no definitive way to tell if this is true. However, it remains high enough on the list of concerns that even countries where cryptocurrencies are not illegal are clamping down on the cryptocurrency. The latest is the UK as regulations have pushed Kraken to remove access for its citizens.

Delisting Monero Over Regulations

In an email sent out to users that were posted on Reddit, Kraken outlines the reason for the delisting. The email explained that the crypto exchange was trying to be in compliance with UK regulations and as such, it will no longer be supporting Kraken (Payward Ltd) on its platform. The delisting will happen in a week and will affect trading activities around the privacy coin.

Related Reading | Cardano Leads Altcoins As Market Marks 13th Consecutive Week Of Inflows

Kraken announced in the email that as of November 26th, UK users will no longer be able to trade Monero (XMR) on the platform. All trading activities will cease including Instant Buy/Sell Services, order book trading on the XMR/BTC, XMR/USD, and XMR/EUR pairs.

In addition to halted trading services, UK users will also not be allowed to fund their balances with Monero on the exchange after November 26th. However, users will be able to withdraw all of their current Monero balance to other wallets or exchanges.

XMR trading at $234 | Source: XMRUSD on TradingView.com

Margin trading is also affected and will slowly go into effect. On November 23rd, UK users will no longer be able to increase their Monero margin positions on the exchange but they can reduce it. Three days after, on November 26th, the exchange will force liquid all open margin positions and cancel all open orders.

In closing, the Kraken team said; “We appreciate your understanding and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our support team.”

Why The Crackdown?

Monero is one of the few cryptocurrencies that manage to confer absolute privacy to their investors. This has made it the coin of choice for investors who want to be in control of their own money. As this Reddit user eloquently puts it, it’s “One of the few coins that truly makes your money your own. Security without compromising privacy, something that was unheard of only a few years ago.”

Related Reading | New Record For Bitcoin Lightning Network As Adoption Grows

Monero is a cryptocurrency that has maintained the privacy component behind the creation of cryptocurrencies. It puts the investor in complete control and makes it impossible for a third party to interfere or see where the funds are going, and since governments cannot track it, then they cannot tax it. Hence the crackdown on privacy coins to limit their use by residents.

Featured image from Kraken Blog, chart from TradingView.com

Monero Featured In Last Week Tonight, Essential Tool In “Ransomware Economy”?

Emmy award winner satirical show “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” released a segment on ransomware attacks in the U.S. and their alleged main financial enablers, cryptocurrencies Bitcoin (BTC) and Monero (XMR). This criminal activity has been on the rise in the U.S. and has been caused by concerns from authorities and the public.

The segment begins with a review of some of the most important ransomware attacks recently perpetrated by hackers groups allegedly based in Russia and other safe-haven countries.  Attributed to hacker group REvil and The DarkSide, these bad actors supposedly took over the company Colonial Pipeline.

Responsible for overseen 45% of the U.S. east coast fuel, hackers took over the main computers and demanded to be paid in Bitcoin. This droved many inhabitants of the regions to chaos, attracting more attention to an issue already affecting everyday citizens, the report by Last Week Tonight presented several examples.

Data presented by the show claimed that revenues from ransomware attacks paid in Bitcoin, Monero, and other cryptocurrencies have “quadruple” during 2020. This metric stood at $350 million, according to “undercount” estimates, at that time.

These types of attacks have been gaining traction due to platforms that offer “ransomware as a service”, making it easy for anyone to acquire malware and used it for these purposes. In addition, the segment claimed that Bitcoin, Monero, and cryptocurrencies have

(…) Made it much easier to make money from ransomware and much more difficult for law enforcement to recover payment. If ransoms were paid in wire transfers, companies could find a way to claw that money back, but with cryptocurrencies is nearly impossible to undo.

The Reply From The Monero Community

Later, the show’s host presented a “Monero ad” implying that the cryptocurrency sponsors its use for criminal activities. The funds in XMR can be exchanged with the approval of the safe-haven states that support the hackers and “look the other way so long as they do their work outside of their borders”.

A member of the Monero community Justin Ehrenhofer had an exchange via e-mail with the production team behind Last Week Tonight. Ehrenhofer clarifies that both Bitcoin and Monero are decentralized projects without “an official company or foundation”.

In addition, Ehrenhofer highlighted the importance of Monero as a tool to preserve people’s right to transact with “digital cash”, a tool that preserves their privacy. Comparing BTC and XMR, the community told Last Week Tonight that the latter is much more efficient at protecting a user’s identity.

For reference, here is the email exchange between Last Week Tonight @LastWeekTonight and me on Thursday/Friday regarding Monero #monero #xmr: pic.twitter.com/QFp3AQLr59

— Justin Ehrenhofer ?️‍? (@JEhrenhofer) August 16, 2021

The Monero project celebrated Last Week Tonight’s segment via its Twitter handle. Despite the tone and approach taken by the show, it’s a platform with an international reach capable of introducing others to XMR and its privacy capabilities. The message said:

Thanks for prominently featuring Monero Last Week Tonight! Monero is an important financial tool that fights back against financial discrimination. Money should be private and fungible, and Monero’s volunteer community fights to keep it that way.

As NewsBTC previously reported, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) acting director Michael Morell published a report proving that cryptocurrencies are much less used for illicit transactions than fiat currencies. Data provided by Morell found that less than 0.5% of BTC trading volume is attributed to illicit activities.

At the time of writing, XMR trades at $268 with a 1.25% loss in the daily chart.

XMR with minor losses in the daily chart. Source: XMRUSDT Tradingview

How This Monero Bug Could Impact User Privacy

A “significant” decoy selection bug has been reported for Monero via the project’s official Twitter handle. According to the investigation, carried out by software developer Justin Berman, the bug “may impact your transaction’s privacy” during a brief window of time after funds have been received.

If users spend funds immediately following the lock time in the first 2 blocks allowable by consensus rules (~20 minutes after receiving funds), then there is a good probability that the output can be identified as the true spend.

Monero Research Lab clarified that the data at risk of exposure is related to addresses or transactions amounts, the funds themself are “Never at risk of being stolen”. Since the report was published around 10 hours ago, the bug has persisted in the “official wallet code”.

In order to mitigate the bug, users can wait 1 hour before spending funds after receiving them. Developers are currently working on a wallet software update. This won’t need to be implemented via a Hard Fork.

The Monero Research Lab and Monero developers take this matter very seriously. We will provide an update when wallet fixes are available.

A Potential Fix For The Monero Decoy Selection Bug

On the Monero Project GitHub repository, Berman made a detailed explanation of the bug. He revealed that his investigation was run by core developers before it was published. He clarified that the decoy selection mechanism that affects the software wallet has “0 change of selecting extremely recent outputs as decoys”.

Thus, why users can mitigate the bug by spending their funds after a while. As the developer clarified, the algorithm introduces 10 “decoys” into a Monero ring, later, it hides the real output. The selection mechanism has almost 0 chance of selecting a decoy with less than 100 outputs, but still, the probability is there:

The fact that there is still a chance to select a decoy with output index <100 is thanks to this part of the algorithm which takes the output_index determined by exp(x), finds the block it’s in, and then randomly selects an output from that block. So outputs from blocks that have >100 outputs have a chance at being selected as decoys.

Although it is still under development, Berman believes that the solution for the Monero bug will require a modification to the decoy selection mechanism. This could potentially impact the uniformity of the transactions if they are processed by a node without the update versus the way update nodes will construct rings, the developer said.

The fix I’m leaning toward at the moment is that the algorithm is off by 1 block, meaning that the paper’s observed gamma distribution simply plotted observed spents. At a block time of 120 seconds, you would expect next to 0 outputs to be spent in less than 120 seconds, which the paper’s recommended gamma distribution seems to corroborate.

At the time of writing, Monero (XMR) trades at $220.95 with a 16.1% profit in the weekly chart. XMR follows the general market sentiment moving sideways after a significant push to the upside during the weekend.

Monero XMR XMRUSDT
XMR follows the general market sentiment in the daily chart. Source: XMRUSDT Tradingview