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ZCash ($ZEC), a privacy-centric cryptocurrency — an altcoin with obfuscated transactional data — is the best performer of this week amid the top 100 biggest cryptos. At the same time, it is highly unlikely that the privacy coin rally will return in 2025.
ZCash ($ZEC) up by 28% in seven days, other privacy coins lagging
In the last seven days, ZCash ($ZEC), a large-cap privacy coin, added almost 28% in price. Earlier today, it hit $368, which is the highest price level since Nov. 29. Meme cryptocurrency MemeCore (M), its closest rival, is only up by 23%.
In the last 24 hours, by contrast, ZCash ($ZEC) performed weaker compared to the rest of the market. While the crypto segment benchmark is down by 2.7%, $ZEC's price lost 5.6% on surging trading volume.
At the same time, competitive privacy coins Dash (DASH), Decred (DCR), MimbleWimbleCoin (MWC), Verge (XVG) are all in the red.
As covered by U.Today previously, ZCash ($ZEC) was the central coin of the Q4, 2025 privacy coins euphoria. In just three months between mid-August and mid-November, $ZEC's price surged by 20x.
The local peak — $705 per $ZEC coin on Nov. 17 — is the highest price for ZCash ($ZEC) in almost seven years. The absolute ZCash ($ZEC) price ATH was registered over $3,191 in October 2016.
Monero ($XMR) dethrones ZCash ($ZEC) and becomes biggest privacy coin again
Such an impressive run was catalyzed by institutional interest in $ZEC. Backed by Winklevoss twins, Leap Therapeutics rebranded to Cypherpunk Technologies and became the first ever $ZEC digital asset treasury company.
Also, investing heavyweight Grayscale filed for the first exchange-traded fund in the U.S. backed by spot ZCash ($ZEC) holdings.
ZCash ($ZEC) even replaced Monero ($XMR) as the largest privacy coin. However, this week, Monero's ($XMR) market cap hit $7.6 billion, while ZCash ($ZEC) dropped to $7.2 billion. Monero ($XMR) and ZCash ($ZEC) are the 26th and 26th biggest cryptocurrencies, respectively.