3 Mid-Cap Privacy Coins Whales Are Accumulating Heavily in January

As leading privacy coins like Monero (XMR), Zcash (ZEC), and Dash (DASH) have seen significant market capitalizations and impressive gains, an interesting shift is happening towards mid- and low-cap privacy coins.

Key Takeaways

Whales are increasingly accumulating mid- and low-cap privacy coins.
Horizen (ZEN), Railgun (RAIL), and Decred (DCR) are notable coins being accumulated.
Privacy coin market is expected to thrive in 2026, with potential gains from these mid-cap coins.

January showed significant accumulation activities in various altcoins with mid to low market caps. This trend suggests that whales are positioning themselves in anticipation of a renewed interest in privacy coins, particularly looking ahead to 2026.

Horizen (ZEN)

Horizen is a privacy-focused protocol built on Base, which is a Layer 2 network introduced by Ethereum. Its primary goal is to ensure privacy while staying compliant with regulations. This allows institutions, businesses, and individual users to perform transactions and computations on-chain in a confidential and legally compliant way.

Currently, ZEN is a mid-cap altcoin with a market capitalization surpassing $226 million. In January, it experienced a surge of over 50%, although it remains down more than 90% from its peak in 2021.

ZEN is included in Grayscale’s investment offerings through the Grayscale Horizen Trust. According to CoinGlass data, Grayscale has been increasing its ZEN holdings since late 2024. The firm currently owns over 948,000 ZEN, which is more than 5% of the total circulating supply.

Grayscale's ongoing accumulation, even with ZEN down more than 70% since late 2024, indicates a long-term commitment from its investors. Previously, Grayscale’s marketing efforts played a significant role in the rally of ZEC last year. Some investors believe that after the rallies seen in Monero and Dash, Horizen could be next in line for a similar surge. The Whale Pod commented, “We've taken a significant position in Horizen (ZEN). It appears ready for an aggressive move following substantial gains from XMR and DASH.”

Railgun (RAIL)

Railgun is an on-chain privacy and security system integrated directly into various blockchains including Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, and Arbitrum. It employs zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography to allow users to conduct transactions and engage with DeFi protocols anonymously.

RAIL serves as the governance token of the Railgun protocol, boasting a market capitalization of over $165 million. Over the past month, data from Nansen reveals that the balances of RAIL on exchanges have dropped by more than 5%, while whale wallets have increased their holdings by over 24%.

A report from the on-chain analytics platform Messari indicated that Railgun processed $2 billion in shielded and unshielded transactions in 2025, generating $5 million in revenue. Railgun Quant, an analyst at Messari, remarked that RAIL may be undervalued at its current price below $3, suggesting it could potentially double in value. “Even at $3.10, $RAIL is trading at a discount of over 50% compared to my valuation model’s base case of $6.26,” Railgun Quant stated.

Decred (DCR)

Decred (DCR) is a Layer 1 blockchain utilizing a hybrid Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, which also supports privacy-focused transactions. Currently, DCR has a market capitalization exceeding $479 million, with noticeable accumulation trends as the percentage of staked supply has increased since Q4 2025.

Recent data indicates that more than 10 million DCR tokens are now staked, which represents over 62% of the total supply—marking the highest staking ratio since March 2025.

Due to the growing interest in privacy coins, Decred has climbed into the top 5 privacy coins by market capitalization on CoinGecko. Analysts expect its price to rise beyond the current $27.6 mark, possibly reaching $60. Analyst AltCryptoTalk suggested, “DCR just broke out of accumulation! The inverse head & shoulders pattern has been confirmed, moving the market into markup mode!”

As experts maintain a positive outlook on the privacy coin narrative for 2026, larger privacy coins with hefty valuations may experience profit-taking pressure. Meanwhile, lower-cap altcoins are often linked with higher liquidity risks. Mid-cap privacy coins, however, may strike a balance between these factors and harbor the potential to join the billion-dollar market cap club.