Looking through various sources I have a short list of causes for high tx count:
Unlikely:
-
BTC ATH sellers off ramping to a much better cryptocurrency that preserves privacy
-
XMR trending as a massive gainer (after a drop) attracts traders
More Likely:
-
Chain analysis firm floods the tx pool so that their heuristic analysis can pinpoint some XMR transactions
-
Binance has released the secret store of XMR they had stacked up before delisting for unknown reasons
-
A Monero Whale is churning a large amount of XMR
5.b) 'Incognito Market' [darknet market] is reportedly exit scamming - escrows estimated in the millions of USD of XMR
Nobody has put forward a clear case yet, and most Monero folks are nonplussed. However, XMR's dynamic block size is making much better work of the flood than other cryptos and tx fees remain fairly level throughout so at least it's a good stress test.
I want to be a part of it too so I'm gonna throw a few more transactions into the pool right now :)
