Monero (XMR) has climbed to a 7-month high and now trades at around USD 546. Over the past 30 days, the price has gained 50.67%, a move that came in parallel with THORChain's upgrade to version 3.20.

Monero is the largest privacy coin by market capitalization. Launched in 2014, the network conceals the sender, receiver and amount of every payment using ring signatures and stealth addresses. The protocol is maintained through recurring network hard forks, which historically ship roughly every six months to adjust privacy parameters and defenses against blockchain analysis. That same privacy property has made it a recurring target for regulators, and centralized exchanges have progressively removed the coin from their offerings over the years.

The latest impulse came from THORChain, a decentralized cross-chain liquidity protocol that enables swaps between blockchains. In late August, the protocol laid the technical groundwork for native Monero swaps with version 3.20. Immediately after the release, XMR rose by roughly 8.9%. Monero's overall market capitalization stands at USD 10.27 billion, ranking it 12th among all cryptocurrencies. Over one year, XMR is up 108.67%.

THORChain groundwork lifts Monero to a 7-month high

THORChain connects several blockchains through a network of liquidity pools and validators. Users swap assets directly between chains without entrusting them to an exchange, whereas centralized venues require an account, identity verification and custody of the holdings.

Until now, that model has not worked for Monero. Anyone who wanted to swap XMR for Bitcoin needed either a centralized exchange or a wrapped token. Wrapped versions map a coin onto a foreign chain and therefore require trust in the issuer — a trust assumption that runs counter to what privacy-coin users are typically seeking.

Version 3.20 shipped in late August. The accompanying press release announced native swaps of Monero and Zcash against Bitcoin, Ethereum and stablecoins. Two days later, however, THORChain corrected that description on its own blog and postponed the activation of both coins. Monero is still missing from the list of supported chains on the protocol website, so XMR is not yet tradable through THORChain.

Instead, the upgrade delivered the underlying infrastructure: FROST threshold signatures, key generation, vault rotation and the observation of transactions. Memoless swaps also arrived — Monero's transaction field holds only 16 bytes and cannot carry the usual THORChain memos. Details are available in the THORChain protocol upgrade announcement.

Version 3.20 changes several things beyond the privacy coins. The protocol introduces protocol-owned liquidity, allowing it to place its own capital into the future XMR and ZEC pools. A so-called stable reserve enables swaps between stablecoins without liquidity fees. In addition, the team restored trading on Solana, Base and BNB Chain. A vault exploit of roughly USD 10.7 million had temporarily paralyzed the protocol in May 2026; version 3.19 had previously resumed operations.

Binance, OKX and Coinbase avoid Monero

Access through the large trading venues has been shrinking for years. Binance announced the delisting of Monero in February 2024, halted trading and deposits at the end of October that year, kept withdrawals open until the end of the year, and then converted remaining balances automatically — deadlines that put holders under time pressure. OKX likewise removed XMR from its offering in 2024. Both firms rank among the largest crypto exchanges worldwide, so their withdrawal hit one of the most important markets for XMR.

Coinbase has never listed Monero. In the United States, owning XMR remains legal, but FinCEN, the IRS and the Treasury Department classify the coin as an elevated risk, driven by the limited traceability of its transactions. That classification also raises compliance requirements for regulated providers. As a consequence, the largest privacy coin has gradually vanished from the offerings of the market leaders.

XMR nevertheless remains tradable. Kraken still lists the coin outside the European Economic Area, and KuCoin and MEXC do the same. Access therefore now depends more on a user's residence than on the choice of exchange. A decentralized protocol, meanwhile, ties trading to no listing decision — which is where the planned THORChain integration comes in, although that route is not open yet.

EU anonymity ban hits Monero from July 2027

In Europe, the sharpest intervention still lies ahead. The EU anti-money laundering regulation, Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, targets anonymous accounts. As of 10 July 2027, it bars regulated crypto service providers from offering them, and from that date the rules also forbid handling anonymity-enhancing coins such as Monero (EU plans to ban privacy coins in 2027).

Crypto service providers include exchanges, custodians and brokers licensed in the EU. The regulation applies directly in all member states and requires no national transposition. Ownership by private individuals remains legal — the rules target regulated access, not the holding of the coins.

Individual providers have already anticipated the rule. Kraken dropped XMR for users in the European Economic Area at the end of 2024, pointing to the coming MiCA regulation — the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets framework that has applied to stablecoin issuers since mid-2024 and to most crypto service providers since the start of 2025. Once the deadline arrives, licensed platforms in all EU member states lose the option to offer XMR. For now, the firms still have roughly ten months of lead time, and the switch will affect customer accounts, custody and trading pairs alike.

Switzerland belongs to neither the EU nor the EEA and consequently falls outside the regulation; the Anti-Money Laundering Act and the practice of FINMA remain decisive there. Swiss providers with EU-licensed subsidiaries or branches nevertheless face the rule through those entities.

The EU is not alone on this course. Japan barred its exchanges from listing privacy coins back in 2018. South Korea followed in 2020 with a directive from the financial regulator, which became legally binding in 2021. Dubai's financial regulator DFSA similarly banned licensed platforms in the DIFC free zone from trading Monero and Zcash.

Regulated access is therefore narrowing worldwide. Licensed platforms are retreating, while a trading route that depends on no listing decision should emerge through THORChain — a route the protocol has announced and technically prepared, but has not yet switched on. Whether and when that route activates, and how regulators respond to a decentralized venue outside the licensed-platform framework, will shape how XMR traders can access the coin once the 2027 EU deadline takes effect.