August 6, Monero (XMR) has experienced its biggest increase in hashrate since the network’s creation in 2014.
Monero hashrate. Source: Coin Metrics.
The Monero hashrate increased from 1.67 GH/s on August 5 to 2.2 GH/s on August 6. That 0.52 GH/s single day gain is the highest in the project’s history. Prior to this, most significant daily percentage gains came in the project’s early days when the base was much smaller.
Banks should embrace privacy coins to protect their clients
On August 3, Coin Center submitted comments to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on National Bank and Federal Savings Association Digital Activities. These comments suggested that banks should embrace privacy coins rather than fighting them:
“We argue that Banks should not only be able to use trustless mixing tech (coinjoin) or privacy-enhanced crypto (zcash/monero) but that they may be obligated to do so in order to protect the privacy of their customers.”
Monero presents a unique value proposition?
It is unclear what has led to this explosion in Monero hashing power. In a world where many feel that they are becoming subject to an ever-increasing level of surveillance, Monero may simply present a unique value proposition.
A number of recent reports have indicated that Monero remains the best major privacy-preserving cryptocurrency. Whereas other privacy coins like Dash (DASH) and Zcash (ZEC) can be traced with relative ease, Monero presents more of a challenge. This has led to several exchanges delisting it.
Monero trails only Bitcoin (BTC) in its adoption rate amongst Dark Web dealers, for whom the privacy-preserving features of crypto are sometimes quite literally a matter of life and death.