Monero mean effective ring size rises as suspected spam attack subsides

A significant (~40K) drop in daily XMR transactions was registered¹ earlier today, suggesting the suspected black marble flooding incident against Monero that started around March 5th² is starting to show some signs of stopping.

Rucknium³ has noted that the mean effective ring size is naturally rising and also added that less than 1% of rings have an effective ring size of 1:

The spam looks like it stopped recently. May be temporary. So, mean effective ring size is rising [..] There are more favorable parameters now (higher ring size and lower spam share of outputs), so less than 1% of rings have an effective ring size of 1. The Chervinski simulation had the share of rings with effective ring size one at 12%.⁴

It is currently unclear whether this is only a temporary pause.

Consult Rucknium’s preliminary analysis⁵ of the suspected flooding incident and the recent MRL logs⁶’⁷ to learn more about this ongoing story.

This is an ongoing story and the report will be updated if/when new information is available.

Update 24/3/28: tx count down to normal levels (<30K); added direct link to latest Rucknium draft (PDF) for future reference⁸.

Update 24/7/25: ‘AntiDarknet’ collective claimed responsibility for the spam attack⁹.