The Monero activity underscores a shift to privacy as well as mined coins and tokens. XMR is still relatively accessible to miners, keeping a baseline of 2.5GH/s to 3 GH/s based on different metrics.
Monero is already a decade old, having launched on April 18, 2014. Since then, the coin briefly traded above $1,000 before settling to its current price range between $100 and $200. XMR was considered a blue-chip asset at one point. However, it lost ground due to its confidential technology.
In the past months, Monero has been out of the mainstream crypto discussion, instead relying on its inner circle. After its delisting from Binance, XMR mostly trades on Gate.io, with some remnant activity on Kraken.
General interest in privacy coins is also a factor, as some assets may be trying to gain hashrate through hidden mining.