Privacy Coins Soar as Altcoins Sink
The crypto market has been experiencing a recovery over the past month, but one sector stands out as a stark exception to this trend. According to Glassnode data, privacy coins have surged by an astonishing 213% since Bitcoin peaked on October 6th. This is in contrast to the median asset among the top 200, which remains 58% below its price at that time.
Bitcoin itself still lags behind the October high, down by 36%. DeFi and gaming sectors are also underwater, with losses ranging from -27% to -74%, respectively. However, privacy coins are the only sector above their level at the Bitcoin peak.
Zcash is responsible for much of this growth, having risen 2,496% over the past year and now accounting for approximately 62% of the privacy sector's capitalization. The latest leg has been driven by institutional access, with Grayscale's Zcash ETF attracting significant inflows since its launch in August.
Removing Zcash from the equation still yields a remarkable result: the privacy basket excluding ZEC is up 85% over one year and 56% since Bitcoin's October high. This suggests that the trend is broader than just Zcash, with other assets such as Monero and Dash also experiencing significant gains.
The sector has expanded dramatically, growing from $7.1 billion to $33.6 billion in just a year. This expansion occurred during an unusually broad crypto bounce, but only 25 top-200 assets are positive over one year, with two of them being privacy coins.