Monero Faithful Coordinate ‘Bank Run’ to Test Exchanges’ Reserves

A group of Monero enthusiasts, apparently fed up with centralized exchanges, has said on social media that it’s planning an XMR “bank run” on April 18.

The so-called Monerun, on the eighth anniversary of the coin's launch, is a reaction to what community members see as a lack of transparency over Monero, including allegations that central exchanges are suspending XMR withdrawals and misrepresenting reserves.

"Looking more and more like exchanges are paper trading #Monero and lying about how much they have to customers. Opt out, get those keys off exchanges and actually own your $XMR," information security engineer and Monero enthusiast Seth Simmons wrote on Twitter.

A Reddit post Thursday detailed the plan. "We're withdrawing XMR from exchanges," a person called bawdyanarchist wrote on the r/CryptoCurrency subreddit. "Any exchange that hasn't disabled withdraws (which many of them have already), we're pulling our funds." That post as of Saturday had been upvoted more than 2,200 times.

Bawdyanarchist wrote that Monero's obfuscated ledger technology has made it possible for exchanges to misrepresent reserves and sell XMR that they don't actually hold. Bawdyanarchist said exchanges can do this because they believe most Monero holders won’t seek to withdraw their funds.

So now, members of the Monero community appear to be coordinating efforts to withdraw XMR coins from as many exchanges as possible to see if they’re right.

The 32nd-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, at about $4.2 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.com, Monero is a privacy coin launched in 2014 from a hard fork of Bytecoin. Monero means “coin” in Esperanto, the international language invented in the 19th century. Monero was trading for about $237 on Saturday.

Monero uses a cryptographic technique called zero-knowledge proofs, which lets users make transactions without specifying any details about the transactions other than that they’re legitimate. Unlike other privacy coins, like Zcash, which allow public transactions, Monero only allows private.

"What better way to celebrate the birth of true digital cash than to coordinate a centralized exchange monero bank run!!!" tweeted Douglas Tuman, a former congressional candidate and Monero advocate.