In this issue of Coin Metrics State of the Network, we examine the resurgence of Zcash and the revival of on-chain privacy, tracing Zcash’s origins, analyzing the growth in shielded activity, and exploring the fundamentals and catalysts behind its recent breakout.
Key Takeaways
- Zcash has sharply outperformed the broader market, with ZEC up nearly 10x since October as interest in on-chain privacy sees a revival.
- Shielded supply has climbed to 4.9M ZEC (~30% of supply), driven mostly by growth in partially shielded flows rather than fully private transactions.
- Advances in zero-knowledge proving, unified-address wallets like Zashi, and cross-chain rails such as NEAR Intents have meaningfully lowered the friction of adopting on-chain privacy.
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