A back-to-roots trade is emerging as market participants take notice of the privacy corners of the crypto ecosystem, bringing attention back to what dominated much of the 2017-18 bull market cycle. Tokens in the sector are up 15% on average in the past 24 hours, CoinGecko data shows. Zcash (ZEC) is up more than 40%, bringing seven gains to over 85% in a run that has made it the best-performing large-cap token in the market. ZEC’s performance is accompanied by upswings in dash (DASH), verge (XVG), decred (DCR) and tornado cash (TORN), which are up from 13-35% in the past 24 hours. Privacy smart contract system Railgun's RAIL token is up more than 117%, with one-week gains of over 300%. Volumes are climbing across the board, with ZEC alone turning over $1.1 billion in spot volumes the past day across all exchanges. What stands out is how capital is rotating into the once-forgotten privacy sector at the exact moment broader liquidity is searching for a new narrative and majors take a bull breather. Bitcoin is cooling just under $122,000, ether trades at $4,350, and majors are steady after the run to fresh highs earlier in the week. Tech-led price surge The mechanics are straightforward. Monero’s XMR remains the default privacy play, but the outsized gains are coming from tokens with catalysts. Monero's developers released the 'Fluorine Fermi' update to enhance user privacy against spy nodes earlier Friday. Railgun’s surge reflects renewed attention on its smart contract–based shielded transactions, while Zcash’s rally has been underpinned by integrations through Zashi, its mobile wallet that now supports cross-chain swaps into shielded ZEC. Dash, long dismissed as a relic, has suddenly jumped as traders revisit its payments branding at a time when stablecoin regulation is back in the conversation. The flows hint at positioning for the longer arc of regulation. With ETF allocations driving bitcoin higher, altcoin bids have followed narratives — AI, meme, infrastructure, and now privacy. The fact that privacy tokens are showing multi-day strength suggests this isn’t just a one-off pump. In earlier bull markets, privacy tokens caught fire when surveillance or compliance dominated headlines. The present setup feels similar: A U.S. government shutdown has stalled economic data, central banks are leaning dovish, and financial censorship debates are back on feeds. That backdrop makes it easier for privacy trades to dovetail with bitcoin’s hedge narrative.
