Monero is a $hitcoin of Cryptonote and Cryptonote itself never did well. It seems like Monero was just a pump and dump by Rpietila, who recently re-entered a psychotic episode and thinks he is a king of some Medieval realm.
http://youtu.be/QANHxv2HTgg?t=10sRpietila has a long history on the internet. Allegations are years ago he was posting all sorts of crazy videos on YouTube, it's overwhelming.