Zcash’s Price Boom Raises Questions Over Its “Privacy Coin” Image
Zcash continued its staggering climb Friday, surging nearly 30% within hours to touch $720 before settling around $670. The move pushed daily liquidations above $50 million, making it the third-most liquidated crypto asset of the day behind Bitcoin and Ethereum, according to data from CoinGlass.
The rally extends a multi-week trend that has seen ZEC’s value multiply tenfold since early October. Once trading near $40 for much of the past three years, the token now ranks among the most actively discussed assets in the privacy-coin sector.
Yet the sudden rise has reignited old questions about whether Zcash’s technology truly delivers the privacy its name suggests. While its creators built the network around advanced zero-knowledge cryptography, recent analyses show that the vast majority of transactions occur on transparent, publicly viewable addresses.
According to data compiled by several blockchain analytics firms, fewer than 10% of Zcash transactions currently use shielded addresses, meaning over 90% remain visible to anyone scanning the blockchain. That figure challenges the project’s core promise of user anonymity and raises doubts about its effectiveness as a true privacy solution.
“Zcash markets itself as the flagship of digital privacy, but its actual usage data tells another story,” said one analyst at a major crypto research firm. “If nearly all of its users are transacting transparently, it becomes hard to justify calling it a privacy coin.”
The renewed scrutiny comes amid broader debates around the future of financial privacy in crypto. Thursday’s sentencing of Keonne Rodriguez, a developer of the Bitcoin privacy app Samourai Wallet, to five years in federal prison sent shockwaves through the privacy-tech community. Some traders believe that judgment drove investors toward Zcash as a symbolic statement in favor of privacy-centric technologies.
Still, skepticism persists about whether the rally reflects genuine adoption or coordinated speculation. On-chain data shows large volumes moving between centralized exchanges rather than within shielded pools, suggesting that much of the activity may be driven by traders rather than privacy advocates.
Zcash, launched in 2016 as a fork of Bitcoin, remains the largest privacy-branded cryptocurrency by market capitalization, currently valued around $11 billion. Its cryptographic foundations, known as zk-SNARKs, once positioned it as a pioneer in blockchain confidentiality. However, as more transparent activity dominates its network, critics argue that Zcash’s claim to privacy leadership may be more historical than factual.
For now, the market continues to reward the token’s momentum. Whether the surge marks a long-term comeback or a short-lived speculative run remains uncertain. But as its visibility on-chain grows clearer than ever, Zcash’s reputation as a true privacy coin is becoming harder to defend.