Changes announced in the Monero (XMR) network are leading to significant rallies. What’s going on, and does the popular privacy cryptocurrency have the right to keep rising?
Monero Hard Fork scheduled for July
On April 20, official information was published about the upcoming Hard Fork of the cryptocurrency Monero (XMR). As a response, the popular coin increased by nearly 14% in price in 48 hours. Recall that Monero (XMR), is one of the most popular privacy coins. Privacy in this case means that cryptographic techniques are used in the network to hide identifying data, such as addresses and transaction amounts. The so-called “zero-knowledge proof” is used here, which allows transactions to take place without details of the transaction, while still maintaining full legitimacy. The network update, which involves forking the blockchain, is scheduled for July 16.
Even more privacy
The upcoming enhancement will become the fifteenth in the coin’s history. The leading change that has been planned is to increase Monero’s ring size from 11 to 16. The ring size is part of Monero’s functionality to protect user privacy. Previously, the transaction signature of the person making the transfer was combined with 11 more non-signatures. This allowed for a new signature and final authorization for the transferred funds. A requirement that increases the number of entities involved in a transaction, strongly improves the security of the coin.
In addition, the Monero team announced a number of smaller improvements to be made to the multisig mechanism. These factors have heated up the market enough for it to feel a definite demand for XMR.
A pinch of data and analysis of the Monero (XMR) price action
At the time of writing this article, Monero (XMR) is the 31st coin of the cryptocurrency ranking with the highest capitalization. It stands at $4.75 billion and the number of coins in circulation is 18.1 million. Among cryptocurrencies whose fundamental aspect is the mentioned privacy, Monero is the clear leader. The second-best Zcash (ZEC) network barely accounts for half of XMR’s capitalization.
Observing the chart of Monero, we can notice that it is one of the few coins that has been in a stable upward trend recently. In addition to the movements resulting from the news, we can notice that XMR has gained nearly 120% in 1.5 months. It recently experienced a golden cross between the 50-day and 100-day moving averages. It currently stands at the threshold of a similar one between the 50-day and 200-day SMA. Volumes remain high and the MACD continues to look bullish. Success in testing the $255 level as support has the power to send XMR as high as $345.
Picture taken from: https://www.quoteinspector.com/media/bitcoin/monero-tarnished-close-wo.jpg