Zcash (ZEC) surged more than 70% over the past week, rising to a seven-day high near $593.86 before easing to around $570 on Friday, according to CoinGecko data. The move comes as traders renew attention to privacy-focused assets amid broader concerns about AI, quantum computing and financial surveillance shaping the crypto landscape.

According to Pav Hundal, lead market analyst at Swyftx, investors are narrowing in on privacy-oriented projects as these concerns intensify. He noted that ZEC benefited after Multicoin Capital co-founder Tushar Jain disclosed on X that the firm has built a significant position in ZEC since February, signaling a possible tilt toward privacy-enabled assets among some institutions.

In a concurrent read of market sentiment, Santiment reported that Zcash was “emphatically rebounding” as fear of missing out and social chatter spiked in step with the price move. The analytics firm also pointed to a broader trust deficit in government oversight as a possible catalyst for retail interest in privacy tokens, framing the recent activity as part of a wider debate over data privacy and crypto regulation.

Beyond price, the privacy theme has threaded through fresh product announcements in the sector. Polygon rolled out private stablecoin payments for institutions, a move that aligns with heightened demand for privacy-preserving rails in on-chain finance. At the same time, Aptos Labs’ Confidential APT—launched on mainnet—conceals token balances and transfer amounts, amplifying the appeal of privacy-centric capabilities for developers and users alike.

Santiment’s analysis highlighted that, even as price action diverges across the market, the privacy narrative remains an important driver for certain cohorts of traders. The firm observed social media chatter and risk-appetite signals rising in tandem with Zcash’s rebound, suggesting that attention is shifting toward assets that offer privacy in a landscape of expanding data-tracking tools and regulatory scrutiny.

Key takeaways

• Zcash has surged over 70% in the past week, trading around $570 after topping near $594, per CoinGecko data.
• Retail interest appears tied to privacy concerns amid debates on AI, quantum threats, and financial surveillance, with institutional players signaling interest via public disclosures.
• Recent privacy-focused feature deployments from Polygon and Aptos underscore a broader industry push toward opaque balances and transactions as a potential differentiator.
• Analysts caution that the rally could be narrative-driven and may not reflect a durable fundamental shift without more sustained demand.

Privacy as a market driver and its limits

The recent price action in Zcash comes on the back of a broader revival of privacy tokens, a theme that gained traction last year even as the wider crypto market softened. While ZEC’s price spike mirrors a revival of interest in assets promising stronger confidentiality, observers urge caution about interpreting the move as a definitive shift in long-run value fundamentals.

Hundal emphasized that the current rally could reflect a rotation into privacy plays rather than a clean repricing based on solid, persistent demand. “I’d be careful calling it a durable fundamental shift just yet. We need more evidence on whether investor interest can sustain beyond the latest price momentum,” he said.

Previously, privacy-focused coins like Zcash and Monero have demonstrated that a subset of market participants remains willing to fund narratives around privacy as a shield against surveillance and data harvesting. The latest uptick follows a period when privacy tokens benefited from elevated media attention and private-market talk, underscoring a potential bifurcation in how investors value privacy features versus broader market catalysts.

New privacy rails and what they imply for investors

Industry activity around privacy-augmented infrastructure adds another layer to the Zcash story. Polygon’s launch of private stablecoin payments for institutions signals a push to integrate confidential rails into enterprise-facing crypto finance. This development could widen the practical use cases for privacy-oriented assets, especially in areas like treasury management and interbank-like settlement contexts within decentralized ecosystems. See Polygon’s reporting on private payments for institutions for more detail.

Similarly, Aptos Labs’ Confidential APT—an on-chain privacy feature that conceals balances and transfer amounts—operated on mainnet transitions, illustrating how projects are attempting to balance privacy with the user experience and regulatory considerations. As these capabilities mature, traders may increasingly view privacy coins as complements to these privacy-enabled networks, rather than as isolated acts of speculation.

Santiment’s brief note on the drivers behind Zcash’s rebound points to a broader skepticism about government trust and regulatory frameworks as a catalyst for retail demand in privacy tokens. In a market where AI-driven data analytics and automated compliance are expanding, some market participants may prefer assets that offer deniability or reduced traceability as a hedge against increasingly sophisticated surveillance regimes.

Historically, the privacy theme has shown resilience during periods of crypto churn. Zcash’s earlier market journey—reaching near $700 in late 2024 as a peak before normalization—illustrates how privacy assets can deliver dramatic, if volatile, upside. Monero also hit all-time-high territory around the same window, underscoring a persistent appetite among buyers who prize confidentiality. Yet the path from momentary excitement to durable demand remains uncertain, and current gains could fade if macro conditions shift or if regulatory signals tighten around privacy-preserving technologies.

Rally durability: what to watch next

For investors, the critical question is whether this move signals a lasting reallocation toward privacy assets or a temporary rotation within a mild May rally. Hundal’s assessment suggests vigilance: while sentiment has shifted, a sustained bid will require clearer evidence that institutions and a larger cohort of traders view Zcash and its peers as reliable hedges against surveillance and policy risk.

As the market weighs these dynamics, traders should monitor several developing threads: the pace of adoption for privacy-enabled rails in institutional-like use cases, ongoing regulatory developments affecting privacy coins, and the comparative performance of other privacy-oriented assets like Monero. The interplay between price momentum, on-chain privacy tech, and real-world usage will shape whether Zcash’s current strength translates into a durable thematic revival or remains a transient episode within a broader market backdrop.

In the near term, investors should stay alert to shifting sentiment, regulatory signals, and the continued evolution of privacy features across the ecosystem. The pace of private-payments adoption and the real-world feasibility of concealment-friendly rails will be key to determining whether Zcash and other privacy coins can convert short-term interest into lasting momentum.

Readers should watch how these privacy narratives interact with broader market cycles and policy developments in the weeks ahead, as the balance between innovation, regulation, and investor appetite will likely determine the durability of this latest privacy-led rally.

Bitcoin BTC$79,891.46 tumbled back below $80,000 late Thursday after the U.S. launched fresh airstrikes in Iran, causing brent crude oil to briefly top $100 per barrel before giving back a portion of gains during Asia and European hours.

The crypto market was already slightly jittery after Strategy chairman Michael Saylor said that the company would consider selling bitcoin to cover dividend payments from its STRC, a u-turn from its previous “never sell” strategy.

Ether (ETH) is trading at $2,280 having lost 0.2% since midnight UTC and around 2% over the past 24 hours, with other altcoins like monero (XMR) and dash (DASH) losing between 4% and 5%.

The broader crypto recovery remains intact with bitcoin having rallied from $65,000 in late March, although it’s worth noting that a drop below $75,000 would negate the recent string of higher lows and would signal a reversion to the pervious trading range.

Derivatives positioning

• The crypto futures market has cooled for the second-straight day, with cumulative industry notional open interest down over 1.5% at $131.5 billion and trading volume down over 12% at $191 billion. Investors are clearly deleveraging in the wake of bitcoin’s overnight drop below $80,000.
• Exchanges have liquidated nearly $300 million in bets in 24 hours, with longs accounting for most of the tally. It shows that traders were positioned for continued price rises into the weekend, only to take the brunt of the unexpected market weakness.
• Open interest (OI) has declined in most major tokens, including bitcoin and ether. Meme token DOGE’s OI has dropped by over 4%, the most among top 10 coins. TON is the standout, with OI rising by 6%.
• For the second straight day, OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta for most majors remains negative, a sign of traders aggressively shorting using market orders rather than passive limit orders.
• On Deribit, the most actively traded contract over the past 24 hours was a BTC $105,000 call option expiring June 26. Market positioning has also shifted, with the top five most traded contracts now including put options at $80,000, $75,000, and $60,000 strikes. This marks a clear change from the previous three sessions, when calls dominated trading activity.
• Bitcoin’s annualized 30-day implied volatility index, BVIV, remains near 40%, the lowest since late January, a sign of market calm ahead of the pivotal U.S. nonfarm payrolls report.

Token talk

• Despite relative weakness across crypto majors and privacy coins, CoinDesk’s DeFi Select Index (DFX) surged by more than 3% since midnight UTC, buoyed by an 8.2% gain in the price of ONDO.
• Ondo Finance is a real-world asset (RWA) project that on Thursday completed its first cross-border cross-bank redemption of U.S. treasuries having worked with JP Morgan, Mastercard and Ripple, driving price appreciation over the past 24 hours into Friday.
• The CoinDesk Memecoin Select Index (CDMEME) lost ground on Friday, posting a 0.1% swing to the downside to make it the only CoinDesk benchmark in the red.
• CoinMarketCap’s “altcoin season” indicator is at 42/100, significantly higher than in April when it was as low as 31/100. The total market cap of altcoins during that period has risen from below $1 trillion to $1.05 trillion.

South Korea has passed a new amendment to the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, tightening control over companies that move crypto assets overseas. 

The revised law will require firms handling cross-border virtual asset transfers to register with the finance minister.

The rule covers businesses that move virtual assets between South Korea and foreign countries through sale, purchase, or exchange. Crypto exchanges, custody firms, and other transfer service providers fall under the new registration scope.

New bill creates transfer business category

The amendment creates a new legal category called a “virtual-asset transfer service.” This gives authorities a clearer way to track firms that support overseas crypto transfers, including stablecoin movements.

The government plans to bring these transfers into the foreign-exchange oversight system. Rep. Lim I-ja, chair of the National Assembly’s Strategy and Finance Committee, said the measure aims to build a virtual-asset monitoring system and support a sound foreign-exchange trading market.

Additionally, the new bill comes as South Korea prepares broader crypto compliance rules. Local industry groups have raised concerns about planned Travel Rule changes, including the removal of the current 1 million won threshold.

Under the current system, the Travel Rule applies to crypto transfers above 1 million won. Industry groups warned that wider checks could add delays, create return issues, and expose users to losses when prices move during verification.

Crypto tax deadline adds pressure

Related coverage also reported that South Korea plans to tax virtual asset gains from Jan. 1, 2027. Gains above 2.5 million won will face a combined 22% tax, made up of 20% income tax and 2% local income tax.

The National Tax Service is preparing guidance with major local exchanges, including Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax. The first full filing period for affected investors is expected in May 2028, covering income earned in 2027.

South Korea has been moving toward cross-border crypto controls for more than a year. Reuters reported in 2024 that the finance ministry planned registration and monthly reporting rules for businesses handling overseas virtual asset trade.

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The U.S. stock market is heating up in a way that suggests speculative mania. It matters to bitcoin as analysts have linked the cryptocurrency’s recent rally to increased risk-taking on Wall Street.

The overheating signals come from options tied to the S&P 500. These are derivative contracts that let traders bet on or hedge against moves in the index. A call option is a bet that the index will rise above a certain price within a set time. A put option does the opposite, offering protection from declines in the index.

On Wednesday, U.S. equity derivative exchanges registered a notional volume of $2.6 trillion in S&P 500 call options, according to data tracked by Zero Hedge. That amounted to 60% of total S&P 500 options activity. To put it into context, the notional amount nearly matched the total crypto market valuation of $2.73 trillion, which represents the combined capitalization of thousands of cryptocurrencies, with bitcoin leading the way.

In essence, the majority of market participants were positioned for upside through calls or bullish exposure.

On the surface, the implication for bitcoin is straightforward: it is bullish. A speculative surge in the S&P 500 could spill over into crypto, driving valuations higher. After all, double-digit gains in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq since early April played a big role in lifting bitcoin to $80,000 from under $70,000 a few weeks ago.

QCP Capital put it best early this week when BTC broke above $80,000: “After a solid April, BTC has begun May on firm footing, breaking above $80k for the first time since January 31. The move appears aligned with equities, reinforcing a broader trend as BTC’s correlation with U.S. stocks climbing back toward 2023 levels, signaling a renewed linkage with risk assets broadly.”

That said, the outsized investor bias for bullish exposure in the S&P 500 has raised alarm on social media, with several handles calling it a sign of an overcrowded trade. When too many investors lean in the same direction, in this case, heavily bullish, it leaves the market more vulnerable to sharp reversals in sentiment and positioning if price momentum stalls.

It’s not just social chatter either. Media reports have also cited Goldman Sachs analysts describing the market as being in a “semi-irrational chasing mode,” a phrase widely read as a play on the semiconductor-driven surge in equities.

If that’s not enough, the bullish momentum in the Nasdaq-listed PHLX Semiconductor Sector index (SOX), as measured by the 14-week relative strength index, is strongest since 1999, according to data source TradingView.

All of that is hinting at speculative frenzy. If it unwinds just as quickly, downside volatility could spill over into bitcoin and the broader crypto market, given their positive correlation. Let’s see how things unfold…

Some Revolut users saw bitcoin briefly display far below market prices on Friday, with app charts showing a sudden plunge before snapping back near prevailing levels, in what appeared to be either a pricing display issue or a liquidity-related dislocation.

Revolut’s official bitcoin page shows BTC briefly marked around £29,414 on Revolut’s one-day chart before returning near £58,600. Other social media posts claimed the app showed even lower prints, including near-zero prices as low as 2-cents, though CoinDesk could not independently verify those levels or confirm whether any trades were actually executed there.

The issue seemed isolated as no exchange on lists tracked by CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap showed any bitcoin price anomaly. It trades just over $79,000 as of Asian afternoon hours Friday.

Revolut had not responded to a CoinDesk request for comment by publication time.

Some users on X claimed buy orders executed during the disruption, but those reports remain unconfirmed. If trades were filled, Revolut would likely have to determine whether the prints reflected legitimate liquidity, stale quotes, a routing issue or a platform-side pricing error.

Flash moves in crypto apps can happen for several reasons. A display glitch can show an incorrect price without actual market execution. Thin liquidity on a specific venue or internal pricing rail can also produce sharp wicks if an order sweeps through a shallow book.

“Revolut operates with limited liquidity depth compared to a full exchange, and if a large enough sell order hit a thin book at the wrong moment, it could exhaust all available bids down to that level before the price recovered,” Ranveer Arora, co-founder and CEO of Altura, told CoinDesk in message as a possible explanation.

In other cases, market makers briefly pull quotes, spreads widen, and apps relying on aggregated feeds may display prices that do not match deeper global markets.

Crypto has seen similar isolated dislocations before. Bitcoin briefly printed far below market on Binance’s USD1 pair in December in a move tied to a thinly traded pair rather than broader selling. South Korean exchanges also saw sharp local wicks during the country’s martial-law shock in 2024 as activity surged and local order books briefly broke from global prices.

Privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC) has spiked by more than 70% over the past week as crypto traders have been paying closer attention to privacy-focused projects.

Zcash traded at about $346 on Friday, May 1, before hitting a seven-day peak of $593.86 on Wednesday. It has since settled at around $570 as of Friday, according to CoinGecko.

Pav Hundal, lead market analyst at crypto exchange Swyftx, told Cointelegraph that traders have begun paying closer attention to privacy projects “amid broader concerns about the impact of AI, quantum computing and financial surveillance on crypto.”

He added that ZEC was also boosted after Tushar Jain, the co-founder of the investment firm Multicoin Capital, said on Wednesday that it had “built a significant position” in ZEC since February.

Zcash is one of the more prominent privacy-focused cryptocurrencies, trailed by its significant rival Monero (XMR), and Jain said it is an attractive investment as “institutions will increasingly seek private assets to protect themselves” from what he claimed was a “political trend to seize private wealth.”

Several crypto firms have also recently released new privacy features. The Ethereum scaling solution Polygon launched private stablecoin payments on Sunday, while Aptos Labs’ privacy feature Confidential APT, which conceals token balances and transfer amounts, went live on the mainnet in April.

The market intelligence platform Santiment said in an X post on Wednesday that Zcash was “emphatically rebounding,” as fear of missing out and social media mentions of Zcash spiked along with its price.

Santiment pointed to a lack of government trust as a possible catalyst for the surge in interest from retail traders. 

Source: Santiment

“The crowd is increasingly viewing privacy-focused assets as a hedge against growing surveillance concerns, tighter exchange regulations and expanding AI-driven data tracking across financial platforms,” Santiment said.

Related: Dash Evolution chain integrates Zcash Orchard privacy pool

“At the same time, lower market caps across many privacy coins have traders eyeing them as high-upside momentum plays during this mild altcoin rally crypto has seen so far in May,” it added.

Zcash rally could be short-lived

Privacy was a significant investment theme for crypto in 2025, with privacy-focused tokens surging last year despite a broader downturn in the rest of the market.  

Zcash nearly crossed $700 in November, its highest price since 2018, while fellow privacy coin Monero reached a new all-time high of $797.73 in January.

However, neither held on to the gains, and Swyftx’s Hundal said that the recent rally could also be short-lived.

“Zcash’s move has some hallmarks of a narrative rotation into privacy coins,” Hundal said. “I’d be careful calling it a clean fundamental repricing just yet. We need more time to see how durable investor interest is.” 

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs — Mid-2026 

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