Simply put
- Privacy coins like Dash and Decred soared Tuesday morning, with Bitcoin dropping below $104,000.
- Analysts attribute the rise to a record interest in retail retail by Bitcoin holders seeking anonymity.
- Dash’s surge is primarily driven by whales, with the top 100 addresses accounting for 37% of the supply.
Privacy tokens have seen a dramatic rally, posting double-digit gains even as the broader digital asset market has suffered a significant downturn.
On Tuesday, Bitcoin fell below $104,000 and the total amount of crypto liquidations once again exceeded $1 billion, but privacy tokens rose.
According to crypto price aggregator CoinGecko, Dash has soared 47.5% in the past 24 hours. Other tokens in the sector such as Decred, Horizen, and Secret also joined in the rally, posting gains of 90%, 10%, and 23%, respectively. Zcash soared by double digits on Tuesday morning, then pulled back and is now up 2.3% on the day.
The surge is being driven by a flight to assets that offer transactional anonymity amid increased institutional scrutiny of major chains. Bitcoinsaid the analyst. decryption.
“Privacy tokens are rising mainly around Zcash, which has become the strongest performer in the group,” said Georgii Verbitskii, founder of DeFi platform TYMIO. He explained that Zcash shares Bitcoin’s key fundamentals of fixed supply and proof-of-work consensus mechanisms, but adds an important layer of privacy that “is becoming increasingly important as Bitcoin gains mainstream adoption.”
Verbitskii pointed to important regulatory catalysts driving this trend. “Privacy has become one of the strongest narratives in cryptocurrencies, with tightening global regulations requiring exchanges to report wallet ownership to tax authorities starting in 2026,” he said, noting that “major players are already converting some of their Bitcoin holdings to Zcash.”
“We are seeing even long-time Bitcoin holders convert some of their BTC into privacy coins like ZEC,” said Slava Demchuk, CEO of blockchain analysis firm AMLBot. decryptionreflecting Verbitskii’s outlook.
He explained that as Bitcoin becomes more institutionalized, it comes under greater scrutiny, making the privacy-focused asset “one of the few remaining options for maintaining the anonymity of transactions.”
Retailer interest in privacy tokens is also surging.
“Retailer interest in privacy coins has reached record levels, according to Google Trends data,” said Ilya Otichenko, principal analyst at CEX.IO. decryption.
He emphasized that there is a clear driving force behind the rally, especially for Dash.
“The top 100 Dash addresses now account for 37% of total supply, the highest concentration in a decade,” Otichenko said, suggesting whales are the main buying power.
He also pointed to domestic drivers, including integration with the privacy-focused Maya protocol and listing on the Aster DEX, which increased trading volumes to levels last seen during the 2021 bull market.
The ongoing privacy token rally is building on previously reported momentum. decryptionThis is believed to be due to access to new institutions through Grayscale products and influential support from figures like venture capitalist Naval Ravikant.
The collective actions of whales, retail FOMO, and a fundamental desire for financial privacy are creating powerful counter-trend movements, allowing these assets to be decoupled from a depressed broader market.
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