A new research note from Galaxy Digital argues that Zcash’s surprising resurgence is not just a chart phenomenon, but a visible edge of a broader privacy revolution, and that the coin’s fundamentals and user experience have changed enough to merit a re-pricing in the market. The report, published on November 4, 2025, asks why ZEC has “suddenly skyrocketed,” pointing to a confluence of cultural, market structure, and product-level changes that have pushed privacy from an afterthought to the center of headlines. “After years of stagnation, ZEC has soared nearly eightfold in the past month,” Galaxy wrote, noting that the move “forces a new conversation about privacy as a feature.”
Why is Zcash soaring?
Galaxy’s central thesis is that Zcash’s technology is finally reaching consumers where they are. The team is focused on Electric Coin Company’s Zashi wallet, which was launched in 2024 and has been iterated this year. It “abstracts the complexity of Shield UX” and integrates NEAR’s intent layer to allow users to express results. Exchange this for ZEC. Pay to that address without manual bridging or multi-app choreography.
In Galaxy terminology, NEAR intents allow users to state their “intent (e.g., ‘Pay X amount of ETH to address y’),” while autonomous enforcers route liquidity and settle it across chains, enabling movement in and out of Zcash’s shielded pools with minimal on-chain breadcrumbs. The report highlights that Zcash’s native view keys enable selective disclosure for audit and compliance, making the new stack accessible and institution-compatible.
This change in usability is accompanied by visible on-chain changes. For the first time in Zcash’s history, more than 30% of its supply is stored in a shielded pool, with Orchard hosting the majority of approximately 4.9 million shielded ZECs.
Galaxy analysts capture the economics of privacy in one line. “The larger the shielded pool, the harder it is to trace its flows,” it says, before inevitably adding that “a larger set of anonymity equals stronger privacy.” Although transparent supply has decreased by nearly 3 million ZEC this year, from about 14 million to about 11.4 million, the redistribution strengthens the very wealth Zcash was built to provide.
Narrative shifts are also reinforced by market structure signals. In what Galaxy calls “the clearest sign that Zcash is ‘coming back’,” Hyperliquid listed ZEC Permanent Securities weeks before going public, expanding access and leverage for traders and increasing liquidity. Open interest has reached approximately $115 million as of October 30th, which could provide a mechanical tailwind and increase spot volatility on the rise and fall.
Importantly, this report refuses to pretend that Zcash hasn’t changed under the hood. We place Zcash’s zk-SNARK-powered privacy in a lineage that began with Zerocoin and Zerocash, and then enumerate the protocol’s upgrade path from Sapling (2018) to NU5/Orchard (2022) and NU6 (in-protocol lockbox in 2024) as the foundation for today’s UX. The study highlights that Zcash is proof-of-work with a cap of 21 million and blocks of up to 75 seconds, a currency backbone familiar to Bitcoiners, but with cryptographic transfers at its core.
Could ZEC price rise further?
Cultural context is important here. Galaxy makes clear that it places this gathering in the midst of a new debate that echoes Bitcoin’s early days: privacy as a right and transparency as a regulatory necessity. The memo reminded readers that Satoshi himself acknowledges Bitcoin’s privacy limitations, citing prominent voices on both sides, including critics of “cooperative token pumps” and advocates who argue that “transparent cryptocurrencies cannot withstand government oppression.” The result is not a verdict against regulators, but an observation that the market is re-pricing privacy as a first-class feature rather than a niche accessory.
Risk and friction are inevitable. Galaxy points out and explains why Zcash has a relatively small node footprint (roughly 100-120 full nodes at a recent count) compared to Bitcoin’s tens of thousands of nodes and Monero’s thousands of nodes. Shielded transaction validation consumes more resources, multi-pool architectures add complexity, and frequent network upgrades require operator vigilance. The technology roadmap aims to address these constraints. The memo flags Sean Bowe’s Project Tachyon as promising an overhaul of throughput and synchronization “without introducing new shielding protocols,” and Galaxy likens its ethos to Solana’s Firedancer to drive efficiency.
Where does this leave the core question – can Zcash rise further? Galaxy does not have a price target. Instead, we believe the case for a turnaround will depend on whether today’s intent-driven UX and growing set of anonymities translate into persistent, organic activities. The mechanism is simple. As more assets are brought into ZEC and protected via NEAR intents, the anonymity set deepens further. As Zashi integration continues to compress user frictions such as on-ramping, swapping, and private payments, Zcash’s “privacy by design” will no longer be ideal and will become the default behavior.
As Galaxy states, “Zcash’s privacy stack has finally reached consumer-level ease of use and is gaining recognition… As more and more ZEC is secured, the anonymity set grows and Zcash becomes more private.”
However, the same feedback loop can run in reverse. The thinner the node set, the more brittle it is under adverse conditions. Leverage-driven liquidity can loosen as quickly as it forms. And the political economy of privacy, Zcash’s biggest headwind over the years, remains outside the protocol’s control. Therefore, Galaxy’s conclusions are intentionally limited and empirical. The gathering has already “successfully forced the market to reprice privacy,” bringing Zcash back into the playing field after years on the sidelines.
Sustaining price strength depends less on narrative and more on continued real-world usage of intent-based swaps, increased shielded supply, and measurable improvements in the network’s operational footprint.
At the time of writing, ZEC was trading at $463.98.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart on TradingView.com
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