Biggest Movers: XMR Climbs to 4-Month High, NEAR Drops 10% Following Recent Gains

April 9, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Privacy Crypto Assets XMR, ZEC See Double-Digit Gains Amid Tightened Global Economy

March 13, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Haven Protocol (XHV) shows strong signs of bottoming out after crashing 90%

March 11, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Altcoin

The Monero blockchain fork has surged by nearly 100% in the past five days against a rising appetite for privacy-focused cryptocurrencies.

Haven Protocol (XHV) showed signs of returning to its bullish form as its price doubled in just five days of trading.

What's pumping Haven Protocol?

XHV's price surged by up to 107% week-to-date to climb above $3.60 on March 11, its highest level in more than three months. Interestingly, the move upside followed a period of aggressive selloffs that saw XHV's value dropping from nearly $20 in November 2021 to as low as $1.60 in early February 2022 — an approximately 90% decline.

*XHV/USD weekly price chart. Source: TradingView*

Traders started returning to the Haven Protocol market against the prospects of two macroeconomic scenarios: U.S. President Joe Biden's executive order that focuses on cryptocurrencies and hardline western sanctions on Russian oligarchs amid an escalating military standoff between Ukraine and Russia.

In the order titled "Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets," President Biden directed federal agencies to submit reports on cryptocurrencies and consider introducing new regulations for the sector.

Meanwhile, western powers decided to cut Russia out of the Swift global banking system while imposing targeted sanctions on some of the country's wealthiest individuals.

Crypto investors priced in the effects of these two updates, deciding to bid up the prices of privacy-enabled digital assets that promise to secure financial transactions from regulatory watchdogs.

As a result, Monero (XMR), Kyber Network (KNC), Tornado Cash (TORN) and other privacy coins outperformed the crypto market massively this week.

Privacy coins have surged, with #Monero posting +26% gains over the last 24-hours to lead the top-100.

During times of unprecedented censorship in the crypto world, no wonder that the price of privacy coins, like $XMR, is surging. #XMR
— Weiss Crypto (@WeissCrypto) March 9, 2022

Haven Protocol, a fork of the Monero blockchain that promotes itself as an "offshore bank," appears to have rallied on similar sentiment.

Fractal suggests more gains for XHV

The recent bout of buying in the Haven Protocol market may have also emerged owing to a multi-month technical support level.

XHV's price rebounded after failing to close below its descending channel support on multiple attempts, as shown in the chart below.

Notably, the token's last 90% drop towards the same price floor in 2021 led to a sharp upside retracement from around $2.50 in June to around $20 in November.

*XHV/USD weekly price chart featuring descending channel. Source: TradingView*

XHV's price hints at undergoing a similar, extended upside recovery after its latest bounce. In doing so, the Haven Protocol token might retest the resistance trendline of its descending channel setup — around $10.

Conversely, a pullback risk declines below XHV's previous support lines inside the $1.00–1.50 range.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

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March 9, 2022 The Daily Hodl

Monero community concerned as leading mining pool nears 51% of ecosystem’s total hash rate

February 15, 2022 Coin Telegraph

51% attack

The sharp increase in MineXMR's mining hash rate in the past few months has led some XMR enthusiasts to suspect ulterior motives.

On Tuesday, privacy coin Monero (XMR) mining pool MineXMR's hash rate surpassed over 1.4 GH/s, accounting for 44% of the hash rate of the XMR network. MineXMR has about 13,000 miners and charges a 1% pool fee. According to a screenshot from Archive.org last August, the pool only contributed to 34% of the hash rate of the XMR network.

The rapid rise in the network's hash rate has spooked some XMR enthusiasts, with Reddit user u/vscmm writing:

"We need to talk with MineXMR to take some action right now! Please send an email for support@minexmr.com to MineXMR admins to take action; a 51% pool is not in the best interest of the community or the pool."

If a 51% attack were to occur, the bad actors involved could potentially overturn network transactions to double-spend participants' crypto. However, given that Monero obfuscates the identity of the sender and recipient through stealth addresses and ring signatures, hackers' capabilities, in this case, would be far more limited. Theoretically, they could only use such attacks to mine empty blocks or double-spend their own XMR by selling it to an exchange and then publishing an alternative ledger.

Reddit users pointed out that MineXMR publicly discloses the location of its corporate offices, which are located in the United Kingdom. Conducting 51% related denial of service and fraud attacks would likely carry criminal consequences in said country. Even if a mining pool were to accumulate over 51% of a network's hash rate, this would only compromise a blockchain's operations if the entity had ulterior motives for doing so.

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