Author: Changan I Biteye Content Team
ZEC's strong surge has brought the long-dormant privacy sector back to the center of the market.
Beyond the price increase, more importantly, it has reignited the market's discussion on the privacy narrative: In today's world where on-chain data is becoming increasingly transparent and transactions are becoming easier to track, is privacy still a niche need?
In the past, privacy was often understood as the anonymity needs of a small number of users. But as more and more funds, transactions, and strategies move on-chain, privacy is becoming a more real issue: if all actions are visible, is on-chain finance truly more secure?
Let's start with the recent ZEC stock price movement and see what the market is actually discussing behind the renewed focus on the privacy sector.
I. Complete Transparency on the Chain: From the Foundation of Trust to a Vulnerable Weakness for Attack
The brand risk brought about by on-chain transparency has already appeared in lending and settlement scenarios.
Back in the previous cycle, when some institutions or large investors lent money on the blockchain, the collateral, debt size, health index, and liquidation price were almost all publicly visible. By simply monitoring these addresses, one could clearly see their risk profile.
When a large trader's liquidation price becomes visible to everyone, other traders may trade around that liquidation line. The price is driven to the liquidation range, triggering a liquidation, and then quickly rebounds.
These cases made many people realize for the first time that the complete openness of on-chain data also means that it can be targeted.
In this round, the problem has become even more apparent.
With the rise of on-chain derivatives platforms like Hyperliquid, more and more whales are opening positions on-chain. Large positions, entry directions, margin changes, and liquidation prices are all likely to be monitored by the market.
For ordinary users, transparency may simply mean the disclosure of information.
However, for large traders, transparency sometimes means exposing their trading intentions and risk positions to all counterparties.
Therefore, the renewed attention on the privacy sector is not simply due to the rise of certain tokens, nor is it merely a rotation among established privacy coins.
A deeper question is whether a completely transparent on-chain environment can continue to support larger-scale and more professional on-chain financial activities.
Users need transparency to build trust, but they also need privacy to protect the security of their assets, strategies, and transactions.
II. A Review of the Three Core Landscapes of the Privacy Sector
Judging from this round of market activity, the privacy sector is no longer just about established anonymity coins. It can be roughly divided into three categories: one is established privacy assets like ZEC and XMR; another is privacy infrastructure represented by Railgun and Aztec; and the third is projects that place greater emphasis on transaction privacy and compliance, such as Genius, SilentSwap, and 0xBow.
1. Established Privacy Coins: Asset and Payment Attributes
Zcash (ZEC): A long-established privacy asset under the ZK route
X: @zcash | XHunt Rank: 13364
Zcash is a long-established privacy coin and one of the earliest crypto projects to use zero-knowledge proofs for privacy payments. Unlike ordinary public blockchains where all transactions are publicly verifiable, Zcash supports both transparent and privacy address modes.
Users can either make public transfers like they would with Bitcoin, or hide the parties involved and the amount transferred through a shielded transaction.
Zcash officially defines it as "encrypted electronic cash," emphasizing its attributes for privacy-preserving peer-to-peer payments.
💰Token performance:
Naval Ravikant once stated on X: If Bitcoin is insurance against the risks of fiat currency, then Zcash is insurance against the risks of Bitcoin's transparency.
In terms of price performance, ZEC is one of the best-performing assets in the privacy sector this round, with its price rising from $200 in March to $620.
Monero (XMR): The foundation of default privacy
X: @monero | XHunt Rank: 4812
Monero is also one of the most representative projects among established privacy coins, with its core positioning being default privacy payments.
Unlike Zcash's optional privacy, Monero is designed with privacy as the default setting, hiding the sender, receiver, and transaction amount.
Default privacy makes it more authentic in terms of anonymous payments, but it also puts it under greater regulatory and exchange liquidity pressure in the long run.
💰Token performance:
However, judging from this round of market activity, XMR's price performance has not been particularly outstanding. Although the overall market environment itself is not strong, XMR clearly lacks elasticity compared to ZEC.
Dash (DASH): A long-established payment project with optional privacy features.
X: @Dashpay | XHunt Rank: 11376
Dash is an established payment encryption project that entered the market relatively early. Dash's privacy features are optional and are mainly implemented through PrivateSend.
PrivateSend's core idea is to enhance transaction privacy through a coin mixing mechanism, allowing users to hide the source of funds and transaction paths when needed. However, in terms of its positioning, Dash is not a pure privacy coin; its earlier main narrative was actually fast payments, low fees, and everyday transaction use.
💰Token performance:
Looking at this round of market activity, DASH has experienced a period of rebound, but its overall performance has not been as outstanding as ZEC. Currently priced at around 43 USDT, while it still boasts established payment infrastructure and optional privacy tags, the market's pricing reflects more of a sector rotation than a repricing of privacy-focused assets.
Secret Network (SCRT): Smart Contract-Level Privacy Infrastructure
X: @SecretNetwork | XHunt Rank: 3677
Secret Network is an early public blockchain project focusing on smart contract-level privacy, with its core feature being secret contracts. Unlike traditional privacy coins that primarily focus on transaction privacy, it aims to solve application-layer data privacy issues: whether smart contracts can process sensitive data during operation without exposing all content on the public blockchain.
The advantage of Secret Network lies in its application-layer privacy capabilities. For applications such as DeFi, NFTs, games, identity, and data marketplaces, many scenarios are not suitable for completely disclosing all user data. The significance of Secret contracts is that they allow applications to process encrypted data while still maintaining on-chain verifiability.
💰Token performance:
From a price perspective, SCRT has not yet clearly benefited from the resurgence of the privacy narrative. The current price is around 0.08 USDT, remaining in a low range for the long term.
2. Next-Generation Privacy Infrastructure: Empowering the Application Layer
Railgun (RAIL): Bringing Privacy to DeFi Trading
X: @RAILGUN_Project | XHunt Ranking: 4099
Railgun is an on-chain privacy system for the EVM ecosystem, primarily serving DeFi scenarios. Its goal is not to create a new privacy-preserving payment asset, but rather to bring privacy features into DeFi transactions.
On a public blockchain, a user's wallet balance, transaction path, interaction partners, and fund flow can all be tracked.
For ordinary users, this means asset exposure.
For traders, this means their strategies could be copied or even targeted.
Railgun aims to solve this problem: allowing users to hide their on-chain behavior when participating in DeFi.
It's worth noting that Vitalik recently discussed the underlying issues facing privacy protocols when talking about the future direction of the Ethereum Foundation. He believes that protocols like smart contract wallets and Railgun still require intermediaries to submit transactions before they can be recorded on the blockchain, which is inherently a vulnerability.
💰Token performance:
RAIL has also clearly benefited from the recent surge in the privacy sector, with the RAIL token's market capitalization rising from 60 million in April to 240 million today.
Compared to high-market-cap mainstream assets like ZEC, RAIL is more like a highly volatile stock in the privacy sector. It is easier to rise quickly when the market is hot, but its liquidity and volatility are also more pronounced.
Aztec (AZTEC): From Privacy-Focused DeFi to Privacy-Focused Smart Contract Networks
X: @aztecnetwork | XHunt Rank: 760
Aztec is a privacy L2 technology within the Ethereum ecosystem, positioned to provide programmable privacy for applications.
It's not a new project. Aztec previously launched zk.money and Aztec Connect, providing Ethereum users with privacy-focused transfers and access to privacy-focused DeFi. However, in 2023, the team chose to shut down Aztec Connect and shift its focus to a new privacy-focused smart contract network.
In late 2025, AZTEC went public using a Continuous Clearing Auction mechanism, with the offering price around $0.047.
💰Token performance:
From a secondary market perspective, AZTEC's overall performance since its launch has not been particularly strong, currently priced at around $0.025, still below its public offering cost. However, with the renewed interest in the privacy sector, AZTEC has recently seen a significant rebound.
3. YZi Labs Investment Strategy: Focusing on Balancing Transaction Privacy and Compliance
Genius Terminal (GENIUS): A privacy trading terminal for professional traders.
X: @GeniusTerminal | XHunt Rank: 7845
Genius Terminal is an on-chain trading terminal designed for professional DeFi users, emphasizing high-speed execution, cross-chain transactions, and transaction privacy.
Genius helps users hide large positions and transaction paths through order splitting and multi-wallet collaboration. Users can complete cross-chain transactions in a single terminal without frequently switching wallets, bridges, and DEXs.
In January 2026, YZi Labs announced an investment in Genius, calling it a private high-velocity on-chain trading terminal.
YZi Labs stated that Genius aims to provide a near-centralized exchange experience in terms of speed, liquidity, and privacy without sacrificing user ownership and decentralization.
💰Token performance:
From the perspective of secondary market performance, GENIUS has shown significant short-term elasticity recently, with the current price at approximately 0.73 USDT.
SilentSwap: A privacy infrastructure for transaction scenarios
X: @SilentSwap | XHunt Rank: 78144
SilentSwap is a privacy infrastructure designed for cross-chain transactions, focusing on private cross-chain swaps . It aims to allow users to hide their fund flows and transaction history when performing cross-chain swaps, transfers, and bridging assets.
On public blockchains, cross-chain transactions often expose a lot of information: which chain the user came from, what assets were exchanged, where the funds ultimately flowed, and whether there are connections between different addresses. SilentSwap aims to solve the privacy leakage problem in these types of cross-chain transactions.
Another distinctive feature of SilentSwap is that it doesn't just emphasize privacy; it also highlights compliance as a selling point. Its official website explicitly lists OFAC & AML Compliant and states that it has two legal opinions in the United States. This sets it apart from traditional privacy projects that "only emphasize anonymity": it attempts to find a balance between non-custodial services, cross-chain privacy, and compliance.
0xBow: Compliance-Friendly Privacy Project
X: @0xbowio | XHunt Rank: 9376
0xBow is an infrastructure project for on-chain privacy and compliance scenarios, with its core focus on compliant on-chain privacy.
Unlike traditional privacy projects that emphasize "untraceability," 0xBow focuses more on whether users can prove that their funds are not mixed with illegal activities while protecting transaction privacy.
Its core product is Privacy Pools. Privacy Pools support peer-to-peer private transactions while preventing user funds from being mixed with illicit funds. 0xBow monitors deposits entering Privacy Pools and filters them through a Know Your Transaction mechanism; only funds that meet the criteria are transferred to the Association Set.
This corresponds to 0xBow's Association Set Provider (ASP). The ASP continuously monitors transactions within Privacy Pools, identifies suspicious patterns, and supports Proof of Association, real-time transaction monitoring, programmable compliance, and modular deployment.
In other words, 0xBow is not simply creating an anonymity pool, but rather attempting to ensure that privacy transactions operate within a compliant framework.
III. Industry Consensus: Privacy is No Longer an "Island Narrative"
Aster: Perp DEX also begins to introduce trading privacy.
Aster is a Perp DEX, but its Shield Mode has already incorporated privacy into the derivatives trading experience.
This shows that privacy needs are no longer limited to transaction scenarios. For on-chain traders, what is truly sensitive is often the direction of opening positions, position size, transaction path, and the intention of funds.
Especially in Perp DEX, if large transactions and position changes are exposed in a public environment, they are easily copied, targeted, or even priced in in advance.
Therefore, Aster's Shield Mode is not essentially a privacy coin in the traditional sense, but rather embeds transaction privacy into the Perp DEX product. It reflects a more specific trend: if on-chain derivatives want to continue to meet more professional trading needs, they may not only need to solve liquidity and transaction fees, but also the problem of exposing trading intentions.
Vitalik: Ethereum also needs native privacy.
It's not just applications that are starting to prioritize privacy; the Ethereum core is also revisiting this issue.
Recently, Vitalik Buterin also mentioned Ethereum's lack of native privacy capabilities and proposed a set of short-term privacy improvement directions, including Account Abstraction, FOCIL, keyed nonces, and access layer privacy work such as Kohaku. These respectively address censorship resistance, transaction non-association, and privacy protection during wallet and chain read processes.
This shows that privacy is no longer just an additional feature of external applications, but is also being discussed in wallets, transaction structures, access layers, and protocol design.
EIP-8182: Ethereum is also discussing native privacy-preserving transfers.
EIP-8182 proposes to introduce a standardized private transfer system for Ethereum, enabling native privacy capabilities for ETH and ERC-20 transfers through a shared shielded pool, system contracts, and ZK verification pre-compilation.
Simply put, it aims to solve the problem of whether privacy-preserving transfers can no longer rely on decentralized third-party applications, but instead become a shared infrastructure within the Ethereum protocol layer.
In the past, privacy on Ethereum has often been fragmented. Different protocols have different privacy pools, different entry points, and different anonymity sets, resulting in inconsistent user experiences and fragmented privacy effects.
EIP-8182 attempts to push this issue to the protocol layer: if ETH and ERC-20 can share a set of private transfer infrastructure, wallets, applications, and users can more easily access privacy capabilities.
This also illustrates that privacy is no longer just a narrative of a few privacy projects. Whether it's Aster incorporating privacy into the Perp DEX or EIP-8182 pushing private transfers to the Ethereum protocol layer, they are essentially pointing to the same thing:
The more mature the on-chain world becomes, the less privacy resembles a niche feature and the more it becomes part of the next phase of infrastructure.
IV. In conclusion: Finding a balance between transparency and protection
The privacy sector has returned to the market spotlight this time, which on the surface appears to be a sector-wide rally. However, simply interpreting it as "privacy coins are hot again" might underestimate the significance of this shift. The real change is that the market is beginning to re-examine the boundaries of on-chain transparency.
In the past, the crypto industry has often linked transparency with trust, believing that a system is more trustworthy when all information is publicly available. However, transparency does not mean that all financial activities should be exposed without reservation. A user's asset balance, transaction history, position changes, liquidation prices, and strategic intentions are all inherently sensitive information. When this information is fully disclosed, transparency can transform from a trust mechanism into a new source of risk.
Therefore, privacy is not the opposite of transparency, but rather answers a more practical question: for on-chain finance to continue to expand, what information should be made public and what information should be protected? In the future, what truly matters may not be who can achieve the most complete anonymity, but who can find a balance between transparency, privacy, compliance, and usability.
While on-chain finance is still in the small-scale experimental stage, complete transparency may be sufficient. However, if it is to support larger funds, more complex transactions, and more professional participants, privacy will no longer be a niche demand, but will become part of the next stage of infrastructure.
