XMR lost its 200-day EMA and broke its uptrend channel | Credit: Hameem Sarwar
* Monero has plunged roughly 57% from its $800 peak, breaking key technical support.
* Short-term momentum shows signs of relief, yet the broader setup remains bearish.
* A $1,000 target looks unlikely, though privacy coin demand keeps the thesis alive.
Monero (XMR) has gone from parabolic darling to structural stress test in less than a month.
After printing a historic high of $799.89 on January 14, XMR has since collapsed by roughly 57%. Now, it trades near $343.
The four-digit narrative that briefly dominated mid-January sentiment has been replaced by a far more important question.
Can Monero’s price stabilize at all in this current market condition?
From Blow-Off Top to Deleveraging Cascade
The early-2026 rally was fueled by a powerful “privacy-as-a-hedge” narrative.
As global surveillance concerns intensified and macro uncertainty deepened, XMR, alongside some other altcoins, became the purest expression of financial opacity.
However, when Bitcoin’s price slipped below $75,000, things changed
Altcoins deleveraged across the board, but privacy coins were hit hardest. At the time of writing, XMR’s price has lost over half its value in three weeks.
What looked like structural adoption at $800 turned out to be speculative acceleration.
Looking at the 4-hour chart, XMR’s price has completed a roughly 57% corrective move from the local top near $788.
From the image below, the altcoin recently tagged the lower boundary of that channel. However, it reacted strongly, bouncing back toward the $340 zone.
That $300 region now stands out as a key short-term support level, while the $350 area, aligned with the Supertrend, is acting as immediate resistance.
The structure remains technically bearish overall, as XMR’s price is still trading within the descending channel.
However, momentum is shifting in the short term. The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) has printed a bullish crossover. This supports the idea of a short-term recovery.
However, for bulls to gain meaningful control, XMR would need to break above the channel resistance and reclaim the $350.
Failure to do so would likely lead to continued consolidation or another retest of the $300 support level.
XMR Price Analysis: The Technical Picture
Technically, the chart is still under pressure.
XMR has lost its 200-day EMA near $387, a level that now acts as heavy overhead resistance.
On the daily timeframe, XMR’s price has completed a deep corrective move of nearly 59% from the local high near $800.
That decline brought price back into a major structural support zone and very close to the rising 200 EMA, which had previously acted as support during the broader uptrend.
The recent bounce from the $300 area shows buyers are defending this region.
Price is currently trading below the 0.236 Fibonacci level at around $363 and remains below the 200 EMA, which keeps the short-term structure cautious.
The prior ascending channel that supported the uptrend has clearly broken down, confirming a loss of bullish momentum. The sharp rejection from the 0.786 and 0.618 retracement levels during the selloff indicates heavy supply overhead above $450.
Momentum, as shown by the Awesome Oscillator (AO), reached extreme negative levels and is now recovering.
However, for a proper trend recovery, XMR’s price needs to reclaim the 200 EMA and close back above $363.41.
Without that, this remains a corrective bounce within a broader distribution phase.
If the $300 support fails on a daily closing basis, the next major historical support is much lower, near $229.43.
The Real Barrier for XMR: Disclosed
The bigger issue now isn’t price momentum, it’s accessibility.
January brought a regulatory squeeze that privacy coins have long feared. Dubai banned them.
The EU’s MiCA framework effectively restricted custodial services from supporting XMR. More than 70 exchanges delisted Monero in late 2025 and early 2026.
However, this did not derail Monero’s network. But it has choked liquidity.
Add to that the lingering effects of the Qubic pool hash rate scare, which briefly triggered an 18-block reorganization.
As a result, confidence took another hit. Even though the network stabilized, exchanges responded by tightening confirmation requirements, adding friction at exactly the moment trust was fragile.
Is $1,000 Still Possible in 2026?
For this cycle, the odds are low.
Prediction markets are pricing roughly an 18% probability of XMR reaching $1,000 in 2026.
Most conservative forecasts cluster in the $$500 range by year-end, assuming macro stabilizes, and liquidity improves.
That said, Monero’s long-term thesis hasn’t disappeared.
* The growth of non-custodial ETH-XMR swap infrastructure reduces reliance on centralized exchanges.
* The tail emission model maintains long-term miner incentives without the risk of fee volatility.
* Privacy coin demand has historically never truly vanished. It resurfaces in cycles.
But here’s the reality: privacy coin demand alone isn’t enough to overcome macro headwinds and liquidity constraints in the short term.
As it stands, the current crypto bear market might not offer XMR’s price to hit $1,000 this cycle. But in the long run, the rally could be possible.
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