Monero (XMR) surged nearly 10% on Tuesday to trade at $335.66 after blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs published a report showing that almost half of all new darknet marketplaces launched in 2025 now operate exclusively on the privacy-focused cryptocurrency, even as 73 exchanges have dropped the token this year alone.
What Happened: Darknet Adoption Surge
TRM Labs found that 48% of newly launched darknet markets in 2025 support only XMR, a sharp increase from prior years. The trend is especially pronounced among Western-facing platforms responding to improved tracing capabilities on Bitcoin (BTC) and dollar-backed stablecoins.
On-chain transaction activity on Monero remained broadly stable through 2024 and 2025, consistently above pre-2022 levels despite delistings from major exchanges including Binance, Coinbase, Kraken and Huobi.
"Despite exchange delistings and enforcement pressure, XMR activity on Monero remains above pre-2022 levels," TRM Labs noted.
Most ransomware payments still occur in Bitcoin, however, because BTC remains easier to acquire and convert at scale.
The firm's network analysis also revealed that 14–15% of reachable Monero peers displayed non-standard behavior, including irregular message timing, unusual handshake patterns and infrastructure concentration. These anomalies do not indicate protocol failures but suggest that network-layer dynamics can subtly affect theoretical anonymity models even as Monero's core cryptography remains sound.
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Why It Matters: Privacy Versus Regulation
The report underscores a widening gap between regulatory enforcement and actual usage. Transaction volumes in 2024 and 2025 were materially higher than in early 2020–2021, pointing to sustained demand from a core user base that actively seeks privacy-preserving transactions despite fewer on-ramps and reduced liquidity.
As transparent blockchains and stablecoins become increasingly traceable, TRM Labs' findings highlight that Monero continues to occupy a distinct position. Real-world usage patterns and network behavior can affect the practical efficacy of anonymity protections, even when the underlying cryptography holds.
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