Key takeaways:

• Within weeks, Zcash surged more than 10-fold, briefly returning to large-cap territory with a valuation of more than $10 billion.

• On Coinbase, ZEC became the most searched asset in mid-November, overtaking both Bitcoin and XRP.

• The growth is supported by several real changes: halving in 2024, growing shielded balances and a financing model controlled by NU6.1 holders.

• Analysts are divided, with some calling the move overkill, others seeing it as a revaluation driven by renewed interest in “responsible” privacy coins in the face of tighter anti-money laundering regulations.

Zcash was not expected to become a major story in this market cycle. For most of the last few years, the privacy coin has remained in the background while Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), XRP (XRP), and a changing group of memecoins have dominated the headlines and trading activity.

Then November came.

In just a few days, Zcash (ZEC) rose to the top of the Coinbase search rankings. A screenshot shared by Zcash advisor Thor Torrens showed that ZEC performed around 52,000 searches on the platform. This outpaced both XRP and Bitcoin, which recorded around 41,000 and 39,000 searches respectively.

At the same time, ZEC’s price has already surged, delivering 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 wrote off as a relic of the previous privacy cycle, the question is now straightforward: How did Zcash go from unpopular to most searched for in one 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 a concept known as the Zooko Triangle long before ZEC launched.

How Zcash gained low-profile relic status

For readers who haven’t looked at it for years, it’s worth reminding what Zcash actually is.

Launched in 2016 as a Bitcoin-style proof-of-work (PoW) chain with a strenuous cap of 21 million coins, it was built on cutting-edge zero-knowledge proofs. They allow users to send limpid transactions, similar to Bitcoin, or fully protected transactions in which amounts and addresses are hidden but can still be mathematically verified.

For some time, it was treated as a kind of “science project that comes with a price”, supported by leading cryptologists and privacy advocates.

Then the spotlight moved further. As regulators increased scrutiny of privacy coins, several major exchanges delisted or restricted them, and Monero (XMR) gradually became the default choice for ardent privacy users.

ZEC dropped in the market cap rankings, daily volumes decreased, and social chatter died down. In early 2024, even though it had survived two halvings and multiple network upgrades, it looked more like a token from an earlier era than a contender for a recent narrative.

Snail-paced turnaround: halvings, protected employ, and management reset

November’s escalate did not come out of nowhere. Zcash has spent the last two years quietly reshaping its history while most of the market paid no attention.

On the monetary side, the latest halving On November 23, 2024, the block reward was reduced from 3.125 ZEC to 1.5625 ZEC, reducing daily recent issuance from approximately 3,600 to approximately 1,800. With a steady supply of 21 million and halving cycles now running on a tighter post-bloom schedule, some in the community have begun to discuss ZEC in terms of “solid money”.

Under the hood, actual employ also changed. Coinbase research shows that the amount of ZEC held at protected addresses has increased from around 1.7 million coins to around 4.5 million over the past year, with over 1 million coins entering protected pools in three weeks.

Overall, over 27% of coins in circulation are currently protected, and other trackers show that the peak short-term protected supply exceeds 5 million coins. This suggests that users are not just trading the ticker.

At the same time, a recent financing and management structure was implemented. The NU6.1 update, activated November 24, 2025 allocates 8% of block rewards to social grants and 12% to a fund controlled by coin holders. This gives ZEC holders formal voting rights on the employ of millions of dollars of development capital between now and the next halving in 2028.

All of these changes laid the groundwork for the re-evaluation long before search volumes spiked.

Did you know? Electric Coin Company commissioned Rand Europe to investigate the criminal employ of Zcash. Researchers found that ZEC had only a minor presence on the obscure web, and Bitcoin remained the dominant currency for illicit activity.

Privacy revival, Monero exploit and recent AML rules

The spark behind it all was the combination of narrative and time.

Privacy suddenly came back into focus after a high-profile event to employ in Monero, it has shaken confidence in the default sector selection. Commentators began to look for an alternative involving energetic management and a clear modernization path. With a scheduled network upgrade underway and halving narratives in the background, Zcash has emerged as a candidate to fill the void.

At the same time, regulators continued to tighten surveillance of foggy cash flows. Recent anti-money laundering (AML) rules, stronger travel enforcement and increased scrutiny of mixers made “total darkness” harder to defend, while Zcash’s model of optional privacy and auditable view keys seemed more compatible with compliance-minded institutions.

A rival’s stumbles, a recurring theme and a protocol that can be positioned as a “responsible” privacy coin gave ZEC a fresh story at a time when investors were looking for the next substantial narrative.

On Coinbase’s Growth: What 52,000 Searches Really Mean

By the numbers common by Zcash advisor Torrens in mid-November, ZEC logged about 52,000 individual searches on Coinbase, compared with about 41,000 for XRP and 39,000 for Bitcoin.

It’s a clear picture of retail curiosity, with tens of thousands of users typing “Zcash” into the search bar on one of the largest fiat ramps in the world.

Over-the-counter social data from X and Reddit showed similar increases in mentions. All in all, November was the month when Zcash came back into the retail consciousness.

Blow-off top or actual re-pricing

Just look at the chart and it’s basic to call it a peak. From tardy September to early November, ZEC rose from the mid-$70s to over $700, at one point rising over 1,000% this fall and over 500% in one month before falling about 30% from its local high.

Coinbase notes that Zcash futures volume has been approaching 10 billion dollars on November 7, and derivatives platforms reported an escalate in the number of open trades as the number of investors increased. For anyone who has lived through the altcoin mania, these indicators often appear during periods of intense speculative positioning.

But there is also the case that November was more of a revaluation than a surge in mania. Supply growth has already been halved by the 2024 halving, shielded usage now accounts for over a quarter of circulating supply, and NU6.1 has introduced a clearer and more limpid financing model during the next halving cycle.

If these fundamentals hold, some analysts say any keen correction could mean a reset in the higher range, although the results remain uncertain. As always, the hardest part is separating the narrative from lasting, real-time change.

Did you know? Before Zcash launched in October 2016, futures contracts tied to the coin on OTC platforms jumped from around $18 to $261 in six weeks, an escalate of around 1,300% driven solely by privacy technology predictions.

What does November’s Zcash moment tell us about cryptocurrency narratives?

Zcash’s November moment says as much about the broader cryptocurrency market as it does about one legacy token.

Markets have a habit of reinventing assets that quietly improve their economics, strengthen their governance, and wait for the right macro story to catch up. In this case, the story focused on privacy. Growing concerns about data exposure, stricter anti-money laundering enforcement and fatigue with completely limpid chains created space for a “partial privacy” alternative that did not appear to be an immediate regulatory goal.

For readers, the benefits are twofold.

• First, stock search data is a useful early signal of where retailer attention is drifting, but it often shows up as fear of missing the highs (FOMO).

• Second, themes never really go away in crypto; they ride a bike. If Zcash can turn its past reputation into a recent narrative, other forgotten categories may not be as dead as their charts suggest.