According to the latest rumor, some Asian darknet overlords are responsible.
They have billions in non-fungible digital money, and they are moving it into Monero because the Alphabet boys came down on them.
Haowang Guarantee was larger than the Silk Road, larger than Hydra, just the “largest illicit online marketplace to have ever operated”, with $27 Billion of transactions since launching in 2021.
Privacy coins are never getting back on the good side of regulators, never.
That theory is indeed very dubious.
The USA is stopping all regulators