Several top privacy coins are defying the trends in the digital asset market, indicating a rising investor interest in privacy-centric cryptocurrencies.
Zcash (ZEC) reached an eight-year high of $388 on Friday after a 7.6% increase in the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap’s data. With a market capitalization of $6.2 billion at the time, ZEC surpassed Monero (XMR) to become the leading privacy-focused cryptocurrency.
ZEC’s 45% weekly growth defied the general crypto market downturn, which has continued to consolidate following the collapse of a much-anticipated tariff agreement between the US and China on Thursday.
This surge indicates a revived investor demand for privacy-focused currencies, which aim to obscure user transaction details.
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Privacy coins like Zcash and Monero conceal sender, receiver, and transaction information, providing greater anonymity compared to pseudonymous cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC). While Bitcoin transactions are traceable on-chain, privacy tokens are created to obscure wallet addresses and transaction histories.
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Arthur Hayes’s $10,000 ZEC forecast
The ascent to the eight-year peak occurred shortly after BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes predicted a ZEC token rally to $10,000, fueling excitement around the token.
Zcash spiked from $272 to a peak of $355 within hours of Hayes’s optimistic forecast on Sunday, as reported by Cointelegraph.
Despite rising demand for the token, large holders of cryptocurrency — known as whales — have been offloading Zcash tokens.
The number of ZEC tokenholders grew by 63% to 1,968 over the past week; however, whale wallets have sold a net total of $702,000 in ZEC tokens, according to the crypto intelligence platform Nansen.
“It’s remarkable to see how $ZEC has surged 10x in just two months, completely separating from the market and disregarding overall sentiment,” noted Simon Dedic, founder and managing partner at Moonrock Capital.
“This isn’t just any coin; it’s a multi-billion-dollar asset. This performance is even more extraordinary,” he added in a Friday X post.
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