Privacy-focused cryptocurrencies have returned to center stage due to the skyrocketing price rise of zcash (ZEC). This asset rose 126% in the last 30 days. The performance has sparked what analysis firm Santiment calls “renewed demand” from retail investors so far in May.
The crypto asset began May 2026 trading at $345 and currently, on May 7, it reaches $569. which represents a growth of 71% in just one week. This momentum has returned the asset to price levels not seen since November 2025, as seen in the graph.
“With the current lack of trust in governments, the privacy sector is seeing a surge of interest from retail traders,” explains Santiment. The rebound would respond to a direct reaction of users to the growing supervision of their economic movements in the digital environment.
According to the consultancy, “increasingly, people see privacy-focused assets as a hedge against growing concerns about surveillance, stricter regulations on exchanges, and the expansion of AI-powered data tracking on financial platforms.” This situation has caused investors to use cryptocurrencies such as zcash as a refuge or “hedge” against the loss of anonymity.
Santiment maintains that, “if rules on stablecoins and KYC (know your customer) continue to tighten globally, decentralized privacy networks could see renewed demand in the real world.”
Against this control, zcash has technical functions that allow you to hide critical transaction details, such as shipping addresses and amounts. This resilience to massive data tracking is driving its adoption in the face of AI-driven tracking regulations.
The price increase has been accompanied by a notable rebound in social volume. This metric quantifies how many times the asset is mentioned on networks such as X or Telegram. On May 5, zcash reached 330 mentions, the highest number in four months, confirming the enthusiasm of small investors, the firm says.
Along with the volume, the social dominance of the asset – which measures what percentage of the total market conversation a currency occupies compared to the others – reached annual highs. This phenomenon indicates that zcash is “stealing” the attention that other projects previously had, becoming the focus of the ecosystem.
This has unleashed a clear FOMO effect (fear of being left out), says Santiment. When social dominance and mention volume reach annual peaks, investors often buy on narrative impulselooking to take advantage of the bullish momentum before the price stabilizes.
In addition to their usefulness as an anonymity tool, the low market capitalizations of these coins make them attractive assets for momentum, the company says. Having a lower total value, traders perceive them as plays with high profit potential during periods of rise in altcoins or alternative currencies.
This search for financial freedom is not exclusive to small savers. As CriptoNoticias has reported, heavyweight investment firms, such as Multicoin Capital, have built a significant position in zcash, consolidating a trend where privacy becomes a coveted asset.
What are privacy-focused cryptocurrencies and how is zcash different from others?
Privacy-Focused Cryptocurrencies Are Digital Assets designed to protect the anonymity of users by hiding sensitive data on the public networksuch as the address of the sender, the receiver and the amount transacted. Among the most notable are monero (XMR), dash and zcash itself.
Zcash It has the peculiarity that (unlike monero, for example, which is private by default in all its operations), offers a hybrid model– Users can choose between transparent addresses (similar to Bitcoin) or shielded addresses (shielded)providing flexibility that allows compliance with audit requirements if the user so decides, without sacrificing the ability to be completely untraceable.