The privacy coins segment showed a sharp increase. According to CoinGecko, at the time of writing, its capitalization reached $10.2 billion, up 19.9% over the last day, with a daily trading volume of $1.94 billion.
Monero (XMR) remains the segment leader with a market capitalization of over $5.84 billion, followed by Zcash (ZEC) with almost $2.3 billion, Beldex (BDX), Dash (DASH), and Decred (DCR) with over $590 million, just over $405 million, and over $309 million, respectively.
According to the platform, the MUTE SWAP by Virtuals token showed the largest daily price growth, rising by 102.5% at the time of publication, followed by Zcash (ZEC), which grew by almost 65% per day.
The increase of institutional interest in the Zcash project can be attributed to several key factors, including the creation of investment products such as the Grayscale Zcash Trust (ZCSH ) and the availability of zk-SNARKs technology, which gives it an advantage among institutional investors who value transaction privacy.
Meanwhile, according to CoinMarketCap, the capitalization of the analyzed asset category exceeded $62 billion with a trading volume of $9.5 billion tokens. The top five anonymous cryptocurrencies are Monero (XMR), Worldcoin (WLD), Zcash (ZEC), Immutable (IMX), and PancakeSwap (CAKE).
Thus, at the time of preparation of the material, Monero was trading at $320, while Zcash showed an increase of almost 64% per day and more than 149% per week, rising above $146.
Why are Anonymous Coins Popular?
As explained by TRM Labs, “Privacy coins, or Anonymity Enhanced Coins (AECs), are cryptocurrencies designed to enhance user privacy and transaction anonymity.” They hide the sender, recipient, amounts, and wallet balance, which makes such assets attractive for:
- Protecting financial privacy
- Security from surveillance or criminals in high-risk countries
- Business confidentiality
- Activism and whistleblowing.
However, due to their anonymity, these coins are often used in illegal schemes.
Regulatory Pressure
Regulatory risks for the segment are growing. In early 2024, the Binance crypto exchange classified Monero and Zcash as “high-risk assets” and marked them with a “monitoring tag”. The OKX exchange also announced the delisting of anonymous coins.
In May 2025, the EU adopted new anti-money laundering (AML) rules that will ban the circulation of anonymous coins on regulated platforms from 2027. This will apply to transactions through mixers and crypto assets with privacy mechanisms.
Worldcoin, which positions itself as a “digital identity for everyone,” is also plagued by scandals. Thus, in May 2024, the Hong Kong regulator recognized that the project violated privacy rules.
In September of the same year, the South Korean authorities fined Worldcoin and Tools for Humanity $830,000 for violations in the collection of personal data, and in Singapore, police investigated the illegal trading of Worldcoin accounts.