ZEC, a cryptocurrency launched in 2016, has seen its price rise by 50% in a month, even as bitcoin struggles to break out of its doldrums. The market's leading cryptocurrency is up about 6% over the same period, Business Insider reports.
The token that uses the Zcash blockchain is largely unknown outside of a group of prominent early adopters who appreciated the cryptocurrency for its emphasis on privacy.
For years, ZEC and ZCash received little attention before unexpectedly seeing strong growth towards the end of 2025.
“People are interested in ZCash because it's one of the few major crypto networks built around financial privacy as a core feature, not as an afterthought,” Daniel Reis Faria, director of Zerostack, an asset management firm focused on flexibility and privacy, told Business Insider.
“As oversight increases in both traditional and blockchain finance, there is renewed interest in assets that retain flexibility and privacy,” he argues.
“What Zcash Offers That Bitcoin Doesn't”
Reis Faria claims that Zcash appeals not only to cryptocurrency traders but also to institutions because it protects the details of their transactions.
“What Zcash offers that bitcoin doesn't is the ability to make secure transactions,” he points out. “Bitcoin is often mistakenly perceived as anonymous, but in reality it is very transparent and easy to track,” recalls the financier.
Several experts consulted by BI say that in a world increasingly influenced by AI and powerful tools that could compromise the security provided by cryptography, the need for privacy is growing.
In January, an analyst at investment bank Jefferies predicted that the rise of quantum computing would be one of the main threats to bitcoin in the future.
The rise of AI is increasingly testing cryptographic systems
Meanwhile, a man who was unable to access his digital cryptocurrency wallet for 11 years claimed last week that he used Claude, Anthropic's AI model, to force access to it, prompting the chatbot to test 3.5 trillion passwords.
Samantha Bohbot, director of growth at digital asset investment firm RockawayX, says she is not surprised by the recent massive purchases of Zcash.
“Privacy-focused coins have become more interesting, especially with the rise of LLMs,” she says, referring to Large Linguistic Models, the technology behind ChatGPT and most chatbots on the market.
“People are giving more personal data to models than they have ever given to any other technology, and over time they will want to protect their data privacy more. Money and the use of LLMs are the areas where this demand first manifests itself,” she adds.
