Zcash (ZEC), once seen as a forgotten privacy coin, is making a huge comeback in 2025. After years of fading into the background, it has suddenly jumped back into the spotlight. Over the past month, ZEC has surged by over 380%, reaching a three-year high of $370 before settling around $340. This rally has boosted its market cap to $5.8 billion, pushing Zcash back into the top 25 cryptocurrencies.

This surge isn’t just hype. It’s a mix of renewed interest in privacy, technical upgrades, and market shifts. While most attention has gone to AI tokens and layer-2 networks lately, Zcash is reminding everyone why privacy still matters in digital money.

Zcash was launched in 2016 as a fork of Bitcoin. It kept many of Bitcoin’s features like a capped supply, proof-of-work mining, and halving events. But its key innovation was zero-knowledge proofs — a technology that lets people verify transactions without revealing who sent what, to whom, or how much. This makes Zcash more like digital cash: private, untraceable, and truly fungible.

Think of it as “encrypted Bitcoin.” It follows similar rules for scarcity and long-term value but with built-in privacy. Back when online privacy was a major issue — especially after Edward Snowden’s revelations — this idea caught on quickly.

But over time, governments started cracking down on privacy coins. Many exchanges removed them due to regulatory pressure. Zcash, along with Monero and Dash, lost visibility. Trading volume dropped, developers moved on, and it seemed like the project was fading away.

Now it’s back — and stronger than ever — right as it marks its ninth anniversary.

Why now? Around the world, financial surveillance is increasing. Countries like the UK are pushing digital ID systems, while the EU’s MiCA rules are tightening control over private crypto use. At the same time, AI tools are being used to track blockchain transactions more efficiently. These trends are sparking new debates about how much privacy people should have in the digital financial system.

Investors are reacting by putting their money into projects that stand for strong ideals — and Zcash fits the bill. With Bitcoin and Ethereum trading sideways recently, some traders are rotating into coins with a clear mission. Zcash is becoming one of these “ideological plays.”

Big names in crypto are backing this movement. Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, believes ZEC could one day hit $10,000. Barry Silbert from Digital Currency Group is also promoting Zcash updates on social media.

Some traders thought Zcash was about to go through another halving event in 2025 — which would reduce miner rewards and limit new coin supply — but this turned out to be a misunderstanding. The last halving was actually in late 2024, and the next one isn’t due until 2028. Still, the idea of limited supply continues to drive demand.

Online search interest in “Zcash” has exploded, hitting levels not seen since the 2021 bull run. History shows that this kind of retail interest often marks the beginning of bigger price rallies.

More importantly, there’s real progress happening behind the scenes. Developers have released a public alpha version of a new zero-knowledge system that makes private transactions faster and easier to use. This upgrade has excited privacy-focused researchers and developers alike.

However, challenges remain. Liquidity is still low compared to major coins like Bitcoin or Ethereum. Many exchanges don’t support Zcash’s shielded transactions. And large institutions are unlikely to hold ZEC directly due to anti-money laundering regulations.

Despite all that, there’s growing excitement in the open-source community. GitHub activity is up, mining power is becoming more decentralized, and Zcash’s tech is still running strong after nearly a decade.

Very few crypto projects from 2016 are still active today with original features intact and a committed team behind them. That makes Zcash’s survival — and revival — even more impressive.

In short: Zcash is proving that privacy in crypto isn’t dead — it’s just getting started again.