Don't want to trade it yourself?
Our desk runs DEX portfolios on profit share.
Zcash(ZEC) has surged more than 2,200% over the past year as privacy coins became the only major crypto sector trading above its October 2025 peak.
Key Points:
- Privacy tokens have broken from the broader market since <a href="https://xpertsstudio.com/hashkey-cloud-joins-stacks-bitcoin-staking-launch/” title=”HashKey Cloud joins Stacks Bitcoin staking launch”>Bitcoin(BTC) reached its October 2025 high.
- Zcash now accounts for 62% of the privacy sector’s capitalization after climbing from 82nd to 10th among cryptocurrencies by market value.
- The wider privacy basket is also outperforming.
Zcash Privacy Surge
Glassnode data shows the privacy sector has gained 213% from its October peak level, while every other tracked sector remains lower, with DeFi down 27% and Gaming down 74%. Bitcoin is 36% below its October 2025 high after 335 days, while the median asset among the top 200 cryptocurrencies is down 58% over the same period.
Privacy also led the market’s latest rebound, rising 90% during the past 30 days as all 10 sectors posted gains. Its lead was substantial. The sector’s total market value expanded from $7.1 billion a year ago to $33.6 billion, with nearly half of that increase occurring during the latest 30-day period.
Zcash drove much of that expansion, but the advance was broader. Monero(XMR) doubled over the same period, while all eight privacy coins with a full year of trading history posted gains, compared with only one in eight assets across the wider top-200 market.
Glassnode Market Divide
Removing Zcash from the calculation still leaves the cap-weighted privacy basket up 85% over the year and 56% since Bitcoin’s October high. Over the past 90 days, Dash(DASH), Monero and Horizen(ZEN) each outperformed Bitcoin.
Among the 25 largest assets, only Zcash, Hyperliquid(HYPE), Monero and WBT(WBT) traded above their Oct. 6 prices. Privacy coins held two of those four spots. Without HYPE, the DeFi sector would be down 46% for the year, while Ethereum(ETH) and Dogecoin(DOGE) remain below their October highs.
The short-term market picture is much stronger. Some 91.5% of the top 200 assets gained during the past 30 days, the broadest monthly advance in Glassnode’s dataset, yet only 25 remain positive over a full year and the median coin is down 55%.
Glassnode also found the 10 sector indices are showing their widest gap in 30-day returns since Nov. 20, 2025. The longer comparison remains more extreme because privacy coins have moved above their October 2025 levels while most major crypto assets have yet to recover that ground.
Read Next:Liquid Network Hackers Return 3,400 Bitcoin, 598 BTC Still Missing
Source: yellow.com