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In the second half of 2025, privacy coins suddenly became the pace of the market, while the rest of the crypto spread through ETF flows, basic trades and macro beta. The resurrection of Zcashhelped by wallets that make privacy the default and a shift in power against long-time rival Monero, suggests that the industry may have come full circle: from cypherpunk ideals of permissionless, untraceable cash to a monitored market, impregnated with ETFs, back to “digital cash” that resists traceability.
CoinDesk Research deep dive on Zcash frames the pivot: shocking adoption has risen to about a fifth of the offer; more than 30% of transactions now belong to the shielded pool; and Zashi, a first-party wallet, makes transfers private by default and enforces “shield before spending”. The effect is an expanding anonymity sector and a user experience that no longer treats privacy as an advanced setting, but the basis of how money should be moved.
Markets are signaling a change in sentiment
The price action tells its own story: zcash is approximately 741% since September 28, while monero is up about 54% since August. Even long names sleep like and both early privacy-oriented projects dating back to 2017 and 2014, have gathered 145% and 337% respectively in recent weeks.
What makes the move remarkable is that it happens against a bleak macro backdrop. Bitcoin and ether are slumped to multi-month lows as traders rotate out of risk and back into a stronger US dollar. The inverse correlation has given the movement in privacy coins a symbolic advantage: investors seem to be buying privacy, not performance.
From institutions back to individuals
It’s a surprising reversal for a market that has spent the past two years celebrating the arrival of ETFs, custodians and corporate compliance desks. Privacy coins are now thriving precisely because they represent the opposite of that trend: Tools for individuals, not institutions.
To the early cypherpunks, privacy wasn’t a marketing gimmick. It was the foundation of financial freedom. More than a decade later, the appeal returns for a different reason. In a world of AI-enhanced surveillance and constant data collection, anonymity is reframed not as secrecy, but as self-protection.
The return of Zcash reflects this change in sentiment. The technology of the network, built on zero-knowledge proofs that allow users to verify transactions without revealing them, has matured to the point where privacy does not require trade-offs. Transactions settle in seconds, protected balances sync quickly, and compliance features like display keys allow users to selectively share data. It’s privacy by default, not an escape.
The Tornado Cash cautionary tale
This does not mean that regulators are looking the other way. The prosecution of Tornado Cash’s developers remains a reminder that privacy still lives in a legal gray area. In August, a New York jury found co-founder Roman Storm guilty of running an unlicensed money-transmitting business, although she has not been convicted of the more serious money-laundering charges. In the Netherlands, developer Alexey Pertsev is serving a five-year sentence on related charges.
However, the winds can turn. In March, the US Treasury quietly removed Tornado Cash from its sanctions listacknowledging that the case raised difficult questions about code, speech and liability. It was a tacit admission that the blunt instrument of sanctions cannot adapt to decentralized software.
The contrast with Zcash is instructive. Tornado was a mixer, a smart contract that pooled and redistributed funds, while Zcash is a complete blockchain with built-in privacy and an option for transparency. This architectural difference makes blanket bans much more difficult to enforce.
Merchants rediscover ‘digital cash’
Bitcoin acted as proof that money can exist without banks, privacy coins are now proving that it can exist without surveillance. Recent trade flows show the migration of capital towards assets that function more like money, immediate, permissionless and difficult to track.
Zcash and Monero are leading that change for a clear reason: they are used, not just traded. Data on the chain show that the protected pool of Zcash, where senders, recipients and amounts are encrypted, has grown to hold about 25-30% of the circulating supply, its largest share since the launch of the network.
CoinDesk Research analysts say that more than a third of transactions now touch that private layer, evidence that users are actively moving coins in encrypted channels instead of keeping them visible on public ledgers.
Crypto comes full circle
The manifestation in privacy coins may be less about speculation than about identity. Bitcoin showed that money could move without borders; Ethereum showed that finance could run without intermediaries; Zcash reminds markets that financial privacy is still important.
After years of institutional packaging, derivatives and ETFs, the pendulum has swung back towards the ideals that launched the industry in the first place: individual freedom and the right to transact without oversight.
Whether or not regulators will allow this change to continue without oversight remains to be seen, but the market is clear in its conviction – the best-performing crypto assets of 2025 are those that resemble cash, and that trend seems to continue.
