Grayscale Highlights Six Promising Privacy Coins: Zcash and More

As the cryptocurrency market evolves, investors are becoming more discerning when it comes to choosing altcoins. This heightened scrutiny signifies a more selective altcoin season. Despite alarms in the market, Zcash (ZEC) and other privacy coins continue to be focal points for many investors.

Key Takeaways

Investors are showing increased selectivity in the altcoin market.
Zcash's holder sentiment remained steady, with some positive indicators in December.
The amount of ZEC in Shield Pool reached a record high, representing about 30% of the circulating supply.
Grayscale's report emphasizes Zcash’s strong performance among privacy coins.
Institutional interest in privacy-oriented assets is on the rise, driven by concerns surrounding data breaches.

Zcash Shield Pool Reaches New Heights

Recent data from zkp.baby reveals that ZEC locked in the Shield Pool has achieved a new all-time high, surpassing 5 million ZEC. This impressive figure makes up approximately 30% of the total circulating supply. The Shield Pool is integral to Zcash’s functionality, allowing users to convert ZEC from transparent addresses to shielded addresses, enhancing user privacy significantly.

Throughout November, the ZEC amount in Shield Pools stayed around 4.8 million, demonstrating remarkable stability even when ZEC's price had dropped nearly 60% at one point. This suggests that ZEC holders have maintained a long-term belief in the asset, remaining unfazed by short-term price fluctuations. In December, ZEC's value rebounded by over 70%, while Shield Pools continued their climb to a new all-time high. Such developments have likely boosted investor confidence, which may explain the bullish stance taken by Arthur Hayes, former CEO of BitMEX and recognized investor.

“The tears of the bears shall be my sustenance. ZEC first stop $1,000.” — Arthur Hayes emphasized.

Reaching this significant milestone reflects the increasing attractiveness of Zcash, signaling a broader trend towards digital assets that prioritize privacy and security.

Grayscale Sheds Light on Six Privacy-Centric Altcoins

Grayscale’s Q4 2025 report has further solidified Zcash’s standing within the cryptocurrency realm. Grayscale is among the largest firms dedicated to cryptocurrency investments. Their report characterized this quarter as a period of consolidation following substantial growth, with the privacy coin sector emerging as a top performer.

In this report, Grayscale highlighted six privacy-centric altcoins, placing Zcash at the forefront of not only the privacy sector but also amongst the top 20 cryptocurrencies tracked by the firm.

According to Grayscale, “The list of Top 20 performers in Q4 featured several privacy-related tokens, including Zcash (ZEC), Monero (XMR), Dash (DASH), Decred (DCR), Basic Attention Token (BAT), and Beldex (BDX).” Another recent analysis from BeInCrypto indicated that XMR had maintained stronger on-chain usage compared to ZEC. For investors who may have missed the rallies in XMR and ZEC, exploring smaller-cap privacy coins like DASH, DCR, and BAT could be a viable option.

Grayscale's report highlighted an increasing institutional interest in assets that provide enhanced privacy as ongoing data breach scandals keep emerging. It anticipates that the privacy coin segment will continue to experience strong growth into 2026, primarily driven by its integration with DeFi and Web3 applications.