Key points to remember:
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Zcash surged more than 10 times in a matter of weeks, briefly returning to large-cap territory with a valuation above $10 billion.
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On Coinbase, ZEC became the most searched asset in mid-November, surpassing Bitcoin and XRP.
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The rally is supported by several real changes: the 2024 halving, increased protected balances, and the NU6.1 holder-controlled funding model.
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Analysts are divided, with some calling the move a blowout and others seeing it as a price overhaul driven by renewed interest in “responsible” privacy coins amid stricter AML rules.
Zcash was not expected to become a major part of this market cycle. For much of the past few years, the privacy coin has remained in the background while Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), XRP (XRP) and a rotating series of memecoins have dominated headlines and trading activity.
Then November arrived.
In just a few days, Zcash (ZEC) rose to the top of Coinbase’s search rankings. A screenshot shared by Zcash advisor Thor Torrens shows that ZEC performs around 52,000 searches on the platform. This was ahead of XRP and Bitcoin, which saw around 41,000 and 39,000 searches, respectively.
At the same time, ZEC’s price had already surged, generating a four-digit percentage gain over the past year and briefly pushing the token back into the large-cap bracket.
For a coin that many traders had considered a relic of the previous secrecy cycle, the question is now simple: how did Zcash go from inconspicuous to the most sought-after in a single month?
Did you know? Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox is a longtime cypherpunk who worked on DigiCash in the 1990s and helped create projects like Tahoe-LAFS, the BLAKE2 hash function, and the concept known as Zooko’s Triangle long before ZEC launched.
How Zcash Went to Discreet Relic Status
For readers who haven’t looked at it in years, it’s worth remembering what Zcash actually is.
Launched in 2016 as a Bitcoin-style proof-of-work (PoW) chain with a hard cap of 21 million coins, it was built around cutting-edge zero-knowledge proofs. These allow users to send either transparent transactions, similar to Bitcoin, or fully protected transactions where amounts and addresses are hidden but still mathematically verifiable.
For a time, it was treated as a sort of “priced science project,” supported by prominent cryptographers and privacy advocates.
Then the spotlight turned on them. As regulators took a closer look at privacy tokens, several major exchanges removed or restricted them, and Monero (XMR) gradually became the default choice for hardcore privacy users.
ZEC slipped in the market cap rankings, daily volumes shrank, and social chatter faded. By early 2024, although it had survived two halving events and several network upgrades, it felt more like a legacy token from an earlier era than a contender for a new narrative.
The Slow Recovery: Halving, Protected Use, and Resetting Governance
November’s rise didn’t come out of nowhere. Zcash has spent the last two years quietly reshaping its underlying story, while most of the market wasn’t paying attention.
Monetarily, the most recent halving, which occurred on November 23, 2024, reduced the block reward from 3.125 ZEC to 1.5625 ZEC, thereby reducing daily new issuance from around 3,600 coins to around 1,800. With a fixed supply of 21 million and halving cycles now operating on a tighter post-Blossom schedule, ZEC began to be discussed in terms of “sound money” by some parts of the community.
Under the hood, actual usage was also evolving. Coinbase research indicates that the amount of ZEC held in shielded addresses increased from around 1.7 million coins to around 4.5 million over the past year, with more than 1 million coins moving into shielded pools within a three-week period.
Overall, more than 27% of the circulating supply is now protected, and other trackers show that the maximum protected supply briefly exceeds 5 million coins. This suggests that users are not just trading the ticker.
At the same time, the new financing and governance structure came into effect. The NU6.1 upgrade, activated on November 24, 2025, allocates 8% of block rewards to community grants and 12% to a fund controlled by coin holders. This gives ZEC holders formal power over how millions of dollars of development capital will be deployed between now and the next halving in 2028.
Together, these changes laid the groundwork for reevaluation long before search volumes increased.
Did you know? The Electric Coin Company commissioned Rand Europe to study the criminal use of Zcash. Researchers found that ZEC had only a minor presence on the dark web and that Bitcoin remained the dominant currency for illicit activity.
Privacy Renaissance, Monero Exploit, and New AML Rules
The spark of it all was a mix of storytelling and timing.
Privacy has suddenly returned to the spotlight after a high-profile exploit in Monero shook confidence in the industry’s default choice. Commentators have begun to look for an alternative with active governance and a clear upgrade path. With a scheduled network update underway and a halving narrative in the background, Zcash has positioned itself as a candidate to fill this void.
At the same time, regulators have continued to strengthen oversight of opaque money flows. New anti-money laundering (AML) rules, stricter enforcement of travel rules, and increased scrutiny of mixers made “total darkness” harder to defend, while Zcash’s model of optional privacy and verifiable display keys seemed more compatible with compliance-minded institutions.
A stumbling rival, a comeback theme and a protocol that could be positioned as a “responsible” privacy coin gave ZEC a new story just as traders were looking for the next big narrative.
On the Rise of Coinbase: What 52,000 Searches Really Mean
According to figures shared by Zcash advisor Torrens, ZEC saw around 52,000 individual searches on Coinbase as of mid-November, compared to around 41,000 for XRP and 39,000 for Bitcoin.
It’s a clear snapshot of retail curiosity, with tens of thousands of users typing “Zcash” into the search bar on one of the world’s largest fiat onramps.
Outside of the stock market, social data from X and Reddit showed a similar increase in mentions. Overall, November was the month Zcash re-entered the retail consciousness.
Thunderclap or real repricing
Just look at the chart, and it’s easy to call this an explosive high. From late September to early November, ZEC rose from the mid-70s to over $700, at one point rising more than 1,000% this fall and more than 500% in a single month, before sliding about 30% from its local high.
Coinbase notes that Zcash futures volume approached $10 billion on November 7 and derivatives platforms reported an increase in open interest as traders jumped on this trend. For anyone who has experienced past altcoin manias, these indicators often appear in periods of significant speculative positioning.
But there is also a case where November was more of a reassessment of prices than a pure peak of mania. Supply growth has already been halved by the 2024 halving, protected use now accounts for more than a quarter of circulating supply, and NU6.1 introduced a clearer and more transparent funding model throughout the next halving cycle.
If these fundamentals hold, some analysts say any sharp correction could represent a reset to a higher range, although the results remain uncertain. The hardest part, as always, is separating the narrative from lasting, real-time change.
Did you know? Before Zcash launched in October 2016, futures contracts linked to the coin on over-the-counter (OTC) platforms rose from around $18 to $261 in six weeks, a gain of around 1,300% due solely to anticipation of its privacy technology.
What Zcash’s November Moment Tells Us About Crypto Narratives
Zcash’s November moment says as much about the broader crypto market as it does about an older token.
Markets have a habit of rediscovering assets that quietly improve their economic situation, strengthen governance and wait for favorable macroeconomic developments to catch up. In this case, the story focused on private life. Growing concern about data exposure, stricter anti-money laundering enforcement, and fatigue with fully transparent channels have created space for a “partial privacy” alternative that does not appear to be an immediate regulatory target.
For readers, the conclusion is twofold.
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First, exchange search data is a useful early signal for where retailers’ attention is drifting, but it often appears just as fear of missing out (FOMO) is peaking.
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Second, themes never really go away in crypto; they ride bikes. If Zcash can turn an inherited reputation into a new narrative, other forgotten categories may not be as dead as their charts suggest.
