Privacy-focused cryptocurrency Monero surged to over $211.07 earlier today—its highest value since May 2022.

At time of publication, Monero has pulled back slightly from its local high, and is currently priced at $205.05, up 17.8% on the day and 30.6% on the week, per data from CoinGecko.

Monero's upward momentum comes as the wider privacy coin sector has heated up over the past week, with the category as a whole up over 12% in the past 24 hours alone, according to CoinGecko data.

Leading the pack in weekly gains are cryptocurrencies including Haven (up 217%), Verge (up 188%%), Zcash (up 27.5%), and Decred (up 30%).

What are privacy coins?

Privacy coins use a variety of cryptographic techniques to shield details of transactions from public view, including ring signatures, single-use addresses and zk-SNARKs (Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge).

Advocates for privacy coins argue that they provide an equivalent level of privacy to physical cash, and that the radical transparency of the majority of blockchains makes cryptocurrencies unsuitable for transactions. That's because identities can be linked to wall...