Can Zcash Go Even Higher? Galaxy Digital Drops Its Take

A brand new Galaxy Digital analysis notice argues that Zcash’s startling comeback isn’t just a chart phenomenon however the seen fringe of a broader privateness rotation—and that the coin’s fundamentals and consumer expertise have modified sufficient to benefit a market repricing. Published on November 4, 2025, the report asks why ZEC “has instantly soared” and factors to a confluence of cultural, market-structure, and product-level shifts which have pushed privateness from afterthought to headline function. “After years of languishing, ZEC has surged ~8x prior to now month,” Galaxy writes, a transfer that has “pressured a contemporary dialog about privateness as a function.”

Why Is Zcash Skyrocketing?

Galaxy’s central competition is that Zcash’s expertise is lastly assembly customers the place they’re. The staff highlights Electric Coin Company’s Zashi pockets, launched in 2024 and iterated this 12 months, which “abstracts away the complexity of the shielding UX,” and integrates NEAR’s intent layer to let customers specific outcomes—swap this into ZEC; pay that handle—with out guide bridging or multi-app choreography.

In Galaxy’s phrases, NEAR Intents permit customers to state the “intention (like ‘pay X quantity of ETH to deal with y’)” whereas autonomous executors route liquidity and settle throughout chains, enabling flows into and out of Zcash’s shielded swimming pools with minimal on-chain breadcrumbing. The report stresses that Zcash’s native view keys allow selective disclosure for audits and compliance, framing the brand new stack as each accessible and institution-compatible.

That usability shift lands alongside a visual on-chain change: for the primary time in Zcash’s historical past, greater than 30% of provide now sits in shielded swimming pools, with Orchard internet hosting nearly all of roughly 4.9 million shielded ZEC.

Galaxy’s analyst captures the privateness economics in a single line: “The bigger the shielded pool, the more durable it’s to hint flows,” earlier than including the corollary—“A much bigger anonymity set equals stronger privateness.” Transparent provide has fallen by practically 3 million ZEC this 12 months, from about 14 million to roughly 11.4 million, a redistribution that strengthens the very property Zcash was constructed to ship.

The narrative shift can be being strengthened by market-structure alerts. In what Galaxy calls the “clearest signal that Zcash is ‘so again,’” Hyperliquid listed ZEC perpetuals a couple of weeks previous to the notice, increasing entry and leverage for merchants and lifting liquidity. Open curiosity reached roughly $115 million as of October 30, a mechanical tailwind that may translate into better spot volatility on the way in which up—and down.

Importantly, the report refuses to fake Zcash is unchanged beneath the hood. It locations Zcash’s zk-SNARK-powered privateness within the lineage that started with Zerocoin and Zerocash, after which enumerates the protocol’s improve path—from Sapling (2018) to NU5/Orchard (2022) and NU6 (2024’s in-protocol lockboxes)—as the muse for at present’s UX. The analysis underscores that Zcash stays proof-of-work with a 21 million cap and ~75-second blocks, i.e., a financial skeleton acquainted to Bitcoiners however with encrypted transfers on the core.

Can ZEC Price Rally Further?

The cultural context issues right here. Galaxy explicitly situates the rally amid a renewed debate that rhymes with Bitcoin’s earliest years: privateness without any consideration versus transparency as regulatory necessity. The notice cites high-profile voices on each side, together with critics of “coordinated token pumps” and defenders who argue that “clear crypto gained’t survive a authorities crackdown,” whereas reminding readers that Satoshi himself acknowledged Bitcoin’s privacy limits. The upshot will not be a verdict on regulators, however an statement that the market is repricing privateness as a first-class function somewhat than a distinct segment accent.

Risks and frictions usually are not waved away. Galaxy factors to Zcash’s comparatively small node footprint—roughly 100–120 full nodes in latest counts—in contrast with Bitcoin’s tens of 1000’s and Monero’s 1000’s, and explains why: verifying shielded transactions is extra resource-intensive, the multi-pool structure provides complexity, and frequent community upgrades require operator vigilance. The technical roadmap is supposed to deal with these constraints; the notice flags Sean Bowe’s “Project Tachyon” as a potential throughput and sync overhaul “with out introducing a brand new shielded protocol,” an effectivity push Galaxy likens in spirit to Solana’s Firedancer.

Where does this depart the core query—can Zcash rally additional? Galaxy doesn’t provide a worth goal. Instead, it frames the upside case as contingent on whether or not at present’s intent-driven UX and swelling anonymity set translate into sturdy, natural exercise. The mechanics are easy: if extra belongings are introduced into ZEC by way of NEAR Intents and shielded, the anonymity set continues to deepen; if Zashi’s integrations preserve compressing consumer friction—on-ramping, swapping, and personal funds—Zcash’s “privateness by design” turns into much less of an excellent and extra of a default habits.

As Galaxy places it, “Zcash is gaining visibility as its privateness stack lastly reaches consumer-grade usability… As extra ZEC will get shielded, the anonymity set grows and permits Zcash to grow to be extra personal.”

But the identical suggestions loops can run in reverse. A thinner node set is extra brittle in hostile situations; leverage-led liquidity can unwind as quick because it kinds; and the political financial system of privateness—lengthy Zcash’s greatest headwind—stays exterior the protocol’s management. Galaxy’s conclusion, due to this fact, is intentionally slim and empirical: the rally has already “succeeded in forcing the market to reprice privateness,” placing Zcash again within the area after years on the sidelines.

Whether worth power persists will hinge much less on narrative than on continued actual utilization of intents-based swaps, rising shielded provide, and tangible enhancements to the community’s operational footprint.

At press time, ZEC traded at $463.98.