It has been a pretty interesting week for Monero holders. With the Monero price surging to US$155 at the time of writing, it seems people are actively looking for a currency that provides proper anonymity. There have not been any recent XMR-related announcements to speak of, but many people would argue the Monero price has been suppressed for some time now. How all this will play out in the long run remains to be seen.
Monero Reaches a new All-time High
It may seem like a coincidence that both Dash and Monero are going up in value at the same time. As it happens, Dash and Monero are nothing alike in any way. While both currencies focus on privacy and anonymity, Dash seems to be far more centralized than Monero in terms of network-wide features. At the same time, using Monero is still pretty difficult for non-techies, although things have improved a lot throughout 2017.
With the Monero price reaching a new all-time high after almost two months of sideways momentum, things suddenly look very different compared to a week ago. While there has been a steady rise in the Monero price these past few weeks, the gains over the past few days have been pretty significant. One week ago, one XMR was worth US$120.2, whereas it is valued at US$155.95 right now. Such major price swings are not uncommon in the cryptocurrency markets, and Monero is no exception.
That being said, the Monero price has a tendency of being relatively stable against the US dollar for extended periods of time. While this popular altcoin may lose ground compared to BTC on a virtually weekly basis, its USD value has been pretty solid these past few weeks. Over the past 24 hours, we’ve suddenly seen a 14.2% value increase against the dollar and a 13.63% gain over Bitcoin itself. These are remarkable developments which are somewhat difficult to explain at this time.
One also has to keep in mind that every Monero price move is accomplished with a low amount of trading volume. Unlike other top cryptocurrencies, Monero has never seen days with over US$500 million in trading volume. Nor will that occur anytime soon, although there is more than sufficient liquidity across exchanges. If there is one thing Monero needs, it is more fiat currency gateways in Europe and the US. After all, only three out of Monero’s top ten trading markets ranked by volume are denominated in fiat currency right now.
Some people may argue that USDT is fiat currency too, but opinions are divided on that front. It is a digital representation of the US dollar, but given Tether’s recent “discrepancies”, it is not exactly a good metric. Monero’s top exchange is Bithumb, with over US$41.7 million in 24-hour trading volume. Bitfinex is a surprising second, although its lead over HitBTC is not all that big. It will be interesting to see if these rankings change over the coming hours and days, and if so, how that will affect the Monero price.
For the time being, it is unclear why the Monero price is going up. There is a strong belief among XMR community members that Monero should be worth more than Dash, although the Dash community will gladly state otherwise. It’s most remarkable that we’ve seen privacy and anonymity-oriented currencies finally hit their stride. These two currencies do something different from the likes of Ethereum, NEO, Bitcoin Cash, and XRP. There is no reason why all of these currencies can’t thrive together.
