Zcash +800%, Monero with three-digit gains: is privacy the only thesis of altcoins that still works?

Source: Yellow Original Title: Zcash +800%, Monero with triple-digit gains: Is privacy the only thesis of altcoins still working?

Original Link: Privacy-focused cryptocurrencies emerged as some of the best-performing assets of 2025, challenging a year marked by weak sentiment and overall poor performance in the altcoin market.

According to data from CryptoRank.io, a small group of tokens linked to transaction privacy recorded extraordinary gains even when most alternative cryptocurrencies struggled to attract sustained flows.

Zcash (ZEC) achieved the biggest advance among large-cap tokens, rising more than eight times during the year.

Monero (XMR) also posted triple-digit gains, while Dash (Dash) ended the year on the rise despite a more moderate increase.

This divergence highlights a market where capital largely flowed into Bitcoin and a small set of large-cap defensive assets, leaving many altcoin narratives aside.

Privacy tokens escape the altcoin downturn

Throughout 2025, crypto markets were characterized by tightening financial conditions, uneven liquidity, and increasing regulatory scrutiny.

Many sectors that had driven previous cycles, such as gaming, metaverse applications, and experimental DeFi, failed to regain momentum, leading to prolonged declines across the altcoin complex.

In this context, the strong performance of privacy-focused tokens suggests a shift in investor priorities.

Instead of rotating into high-growth narratives, market participants seemed to prefer assets aligned with fundamental cryptocurrency attributes, such as censorship resistance and self-custody.

Zcash’s rally was particularly notable given its market capitalization threshold, placing it outside the low-liquidity segments prone to sharp speculative movements.

Monero’s advance reinforced this pattern, highlighting sustained demand rather than a short-term boost.

Regulation and surveillance shape investor behavior

Renewed interest in privacy assets coincided with an increasingly assertive regulatory environment.

Throughout the year, authorities expanded the enforcement of the travel rule, increased oversight of centralized exchanges, and advanced frameworks aimed at monitoring digital asset flows, especially in stablecoins and cross-border payments.

At the same time, geopolitical tensions and sanctions continued to fragment global financial pathways.

In this context, privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies have been treated less as speculative instruments and more as defensive exposures, offering protection against heavily surveilled systems.

The relatively moderate gains in larger utility tokens like BNB (BNB) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) further underscore this trend, suggesting that capital shifted toward ideological primitives rather than growth stories in the application layer.

What the market might be discounting for 2026

The strong performance of privacy tokens in 2025 could have implications for the upcoming market cycle.

More than indicating an isolated move in “privacy coins,” the trend points to a broader focus on financial sovereignty, combining infrastructure that preserves privacy, censorship-resistant payments, and selective disclosure technologies.

As crypto increasingly integrates with regulated financial systems, demand for tools that preserve user autonomy without fully abandoning compliance could grow.

The question remains whether this demand will be expressed through standalone assets, modular blockchain layers, or privacy-enabled wallets.

What is clearer is that, in a challenging year for altcoins, the market rewarded assets more closely aligned with the original use case of cryptocurrencies.

This recalibration could shape both capital allocation and narrative leadership as the industry moves toward 2026.