Privacy Coins Surge 213% Since Bitcoin Peak, Other Sectors Lag

Since Bitcoin (BTC) reached its all-time high last October, privacy coins have gained 213%. Glassnode, an on-chain analytics firm, reports that all other crypto sectors are down.

The median token among the top 200 cryptocurrencies is 58% cheaper than it was on that date. Bitcoin itself is still 36% below its own record high.

Privacy Coins Are the Only Sector Above the High

Glassnode monitors 10 sectors, comparing each to its price on October 6, 2025 — which was the day Bitcoin topped out at $126,199 on Binance.

Privacy coins are the only sector showing a gain. DeFi, the best among the losing sectors, is down 27%. Gaming has fallen the most, at 74%.

Almost all 10 sectors rose in the past month.

Privacy coins also led that rally with a 90% increase. The ranking remained unchanged, with just 9% of the top 200 tokens trading above their October high, despite the widespread bounce.

Thus, the altcoin season did not materialize as holders had hoped. Capital concentrated on a single theme and stayed there.

Zcash Is Doing Almost All the Work

A year ago, privacy coins had a combined market cap of $7.1 billion. Glassnode now estimates the sector at $33.6 billion, slightly ahead of Tron (TRX), the eighth-largest crypto. Zcash (ZEC) accounts for the majority of that value. ZEC trades near $1,180 and is the ninth-largest crypto by market cap at $19.9 billion.

Notably, ZEC has risen 687% since Bitcoin's peak, while the privacy sector has gained 213%.

Just four of the 25 biggest cryptocurrencies have outperformed their October price. Two of them are privacy coins: ZEC and Monero (XMR), the latter having roughly doubled.

The rally was not without issues, however. In June, Zcash had to patch a critical bug in its shielded pool, and then in July it sealed that pool with the Ironwood network upgrade.

In August, BeInCrypto questioned whether ZEC could reach $1,000 this cycle, when it was trading near $675. The token surpassed that level days later, and Grayscale's Zcash ETF assets have reached $463 million.

The Bottom of the Sector Is Thin

According to Glassnode, all eight privacy coins with at least a year of history have posted gains. Three of them have barely moved. Decred (DCR) recorded a 2% increase on that metric. Two others saw gains of 3% and 6%.

CoinGecko now puts Decred down 2.9% over 12 months. The sector's weakest component has already turned negative. Zcash and Monero together hold about 90% of the sector's value.

A stall in Zcash's price movement would eliminate the only sector that is still showing a gain.