Zcash: how a forgotten privacy coin turned into the most viral search of November 2025

The ZEC Meteor That No One Predicted

For years, Zcash (ZEC) remained on the fringes of the crypto market. While Bitcoin dominated conversations and XRP fueled traders’ enthusiasm, the privacy coin from Electronic Coin Company languished at the bottom of the rankings. Then, without warning, everything changed. In just a few weeks, ZEC’s price surged over 1,000%, the token briefly entered the large-cap category with a valuation exceeding $10 billion, and something even more surprising happened: on Coinbase, ZEC became the most searched asset of the month.

Screenshots shared by Zcash advisor Thor Torrens confirm this: approximately 52,000 individual searches for ZEC compared to 41,000 for XRP and 39,000 for Bitcoin. A figure that represents not just curiosity but a real shift in sentiment towards a category of tokens that many traders considered obsolete.

What is Zcash and Why Was It Forgotten

Zcash was launched in 2016 as a proof-of-work blockchain with a hard cap of 21 million coins, modeled on Bitcoin but with a crucial addition: zero-knowledge proof. This technology allows for transparent transactions like Bitcoin or fully protected transactions, where amounts and addresses remain hidden but verifiable mathematically.

Initially, the project was considered a revolutionary innovation, supported by world-renowned cryptographers and figures like Zooko Wilcox, the founder who had worked on historic projects like DigiCash in the 1990s. For a period, ZEC was treated as a scientific experiment with a market value.

But regulatory pressure soon followed. As lawmakers tightened privacy coin regulations, major exchanges began to delist or restrict trading of ZEC. Monero (XMR) became the default choice for those seeking maximum privacy. Zcash slipped down the market cap rankings, daily volumes decreased, and the sector lost interest. Until recently, ZEC seemed like a relic of the previous cycle—a legacy token without a clear narrative for the new market.

The Silent Reset: Halving, Governance, and Real Use

The November rally was not a lightning bolt from the blue. Over the past two years, Zcash has undergone a structural transformation almost unnoticed by the market.

The November 2024 halving was the first pillar. On November 23, 2024, the block reward was reduced from 3.125 ZEC to 1.5625 ZEC, halving the daily issuance from about 3,600 coins to 1,800. With a fixed maximum supply of 21 million and halving cycles now more frequent after the Blossom upgrade, Zcash began to be discussed by the community as “sound money”—a currency with programmed scarcity and predictable issuance.

The second pillar was actual adoption. Coinbase data shows that the amount of ZEC held in protected addresses increased from about 1.7 million coins to around 4.5 million over the past year. More significantly: over 1 million coins were transferred into protected pools in just three weeks. Today, more than 27% of the circulating supply is stored in protected addresses. These numbers indicate that it was not just speculation on the rise but users actually utilizing privacy as a core feature.

The third pillar was renewed governance. The NU6.1 upgrade, activated on November 24, 2025, introduced a decentralized funding model: 8% of block rewards are allocated to community grants, while 12% funds a treasury controlled directly by ZEC holders. This means that holders finally had a formal voice on how millions of dollars in development capital would be spent until the next halving in 2028.

Monero, the Dark Web, and the Return of Privacy Narrative

What ignited the spark was a combination of timing and a perfect narrative. Privacy suddenly returned to the spotlight thanks to a high-profile exploit on Monero – Zcash’s direct competitor – which undermined user confidence in the sector’s default choice. Traders began seeking a credible alternative with active governance and a transparent upgrade roadmap. Zcash, with a clear technical agenda and an upcoming network upgrade, naturally positioned itself as a candidate to fill that narrative gap.

At the same time, regulators tightened the screws. New Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations, increasingly strict enforcement of the Travel Rule, and scrutiny of cryptographic mixers made “absolute and uncompromising” privacy indefensible. Zcash’s model—optional privacy with zero-knowledge proof and verifiable viewing keys—suddenly appeared more compatible with an ecosystem where compliance was becoming not just a choice but a prerequisite.

A struggling rival, a recurring theme at the center of discussion, and a protocol positioned as a “responsible” privacy coin: all the ingredients were perfect for a reevaluation at the very moment traders were searching for the next big narrative.

Coinbase’s 52,000 Signals and What They Really Mean

Numbers tell a fascinating story. According to Torrens’ data, ZEC reached about 52,000 individual searches on Coinbase in mid-November, surpassing both XRP and Bitcoin. It’s a snapshot of retail behavior during FOMO, with tens of thousands of users typing “Zcash” into the search bar of one of the world’s leading fiat on-ramps.

On X and Reddit, the phenomenon was even more evident: mentions of Zcash reached levels never seen since the token’s launch in 2016. November was the month Zcash re-entered the collective consciousness of the retail market—but with a crucial difference: this time, there was a structural narrative underlying it, not just pure FOMO.

Price, Future, and the Open Question of Demand

November’s numbers are impressive. From late September to early November, ZEC rose from about $70 to over $700, gaining 1,000% in autumn and 500% in a single month. From local highs, the price corrected about 30%, currently standing at $404.26, with a year characterized by an astonishing +732.80%.

The futures volume for Zcash hit nearly $10 billion on November 7. Derivatives platforms recorded record open interest. For those who experienced past altcoin mania, these indicators are familiar and often precursors to violent retracements.

However, there’s another perspective. If the 2024 halving truly halved inflation, if over 27% of the circulating supply remains effectively protected, and if NU6.1 truly provides a transparent governance model for the next four years, then November might not have been a speculative bubble but rather a revaluation of an asset that had long discounted the pessimism of the previous cycle.

The challenge, as always in crypto, is to distinguish the narrative from the structural change while it’s happening in real time. Only the next market cycle will tell if Zcash maintains its new position or returns to marginality.

What Zcash’s Moment Teaches Us About How the Crypto Market Works

Zcash’s November story contains a broader lesson about the crypto market: assets do not disappear forever; they cycle back. Markets tend to rediscover assets that quietly improve their fundamentals, strengthen governance, and patiently wait for macro sentiment to align. In this case, the narrative was privacy. The increasing focus on data security, stricter enforcement of global AML regulations, and fatigue with fully transparent chains created space for a “partial privacy” alternative that was not a primary target for regulators.

For traders observing these movements, there are two lessons:

First: search data on exchanges is a reliable early signal to anticipate where retail attention is shifting, but it often emerges just as FOMO peaks. Curiosity is not certainty.

Second: crypto cycles are not chaotic; they follow recurring narratives. If a category like privacy coins can go from “relic” to “main character,” other forgotten categories might also surprise when the macro context changes. The only certainty is that the next asset to discover will not be what everyone expects.