In brief
- Privacy coins including Zcash, Dash and Monero have tumbled during the crypto market rout.
- ZCash and Dash trade as “speculative narratives, not utility tools,” causing them to drop like high-beta altcoins, Decrypt was told.
- Technological advances, political pressure like EU ‘chat control’, and genuine risk-based demand drove the privacy coin narrative, according to experts.
Leading privacy coins have slumped, shedding recent gains as they fall in tandem with a broader crypto market downturn.
ZCash is down 8.5% over the past 24 hours, while Monero has fallen 5.4% and Dash has shed 3.9%, according to CoinGecko data, while the privacy coins sector as a whole has dropped by 15.4%. The declines mark a sharp reversal for a sector that saw explosive, market-defying rallies throughout the fourth quarter.
The parallel drop with major assets like Bitcoin reflects a significant shift in how these tokens are traded, analysts say.
The narrative of privacy coins as a safe haven “broke in December as the market priced in reality,” Slava Demchuk, CEO of AMLBot, told Decrypt. He noted that for coins like ZCash and Dash, most on-chain volume remains transparent. “They trade as speculative narratives, not utility tools, causing them to drop like standard high-beta altcoins.”
This new dynamic means privacy assets are now governed by the same macro forces as the rest of crypto, Jamie Elkaleh, CMO at Bitget Wallet, told Decrypt.
“With the introduction of ETFs and significant capital inflows, ETF positioning and monetary policy expectations increasingly dictate crypto market direction,” Elkaleh noted. “Privacy assets are behaving less like isolated hedges and more like high-beta components of the broader ecosystem.”
What makes privacy coins tick?
Despite the current pullback, the core drivers for privacy technology remain potent. Historically, rallies have been fueled by a confluence of three factors, Demchuk explained.
The first factor is technological advancement in cryptographic privacy. The second is political and regulatory pressure, such as the controversial EU ‘chat control’ proposal and bans on anonymous accounts—a dynamic that spiked demand for coins like ZCash as recently as October. The third is genuine demand from users and businesses in jurisdictions where transparent ledgers pose real-world risks, according to the AMLBot CEO.
The governance of the projects themselves can also become a source of pressure and debate.
Recently, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin weighed in on Zcash’s committee-based governance, warning that a shift to token voting could undermine its privacy guarantees, highlighting the ongoing tension between decentralization and security in the sector.
“The more pressure you apply, the more valuable the tools that give people their privacy back tend to become,” Demchuk said.
Today, however, they trade more like a speculative extension of the Bitcoin cycle, he added.
Looking ahead: A recovery tied to Bitcoin
The path to recovery for privacy coins is now inextricably linked to the broader market. Both experts agree that a rebound hinges on Bitcoin finding stability.
“If Bitcoin stabilizes at a higher level and risk appetite returns,” Demchuk said, these coins can “claw back recent losses. Historically, they move harder than Bitcoin.”
Elkaleh echoed this outlook, noting that “liquidity tends to flow outward from Bitcoin into higher-beta sectors once risk appetite returns.”
Privacy coins have historically outperformed during market rotations, especially when sentiment shifts from defensive to exploratory, the Bitget Wallet executive added.
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