Cryptomining is one of the few payloads where the monetary gain is directly tied to tangible value. Monero is a favorite for illicit mining for a variety of reasons, but it’s privacy focused. The value of Monero has fluctuated significantly over the past several years. The most significant spike in mining activity has occurred in the last couple of months when Monero hit its high-outside of the short price spike, before the massive spike in the value of the currency occurred in early 2021.”]
Source: https://blog.talosintelligence.com/2021/07/cryptomining-analysis.html