Zcash (ZEC) has turned “privacy coins are back” into a textbook-grade market move this year—from a bottom of under $40 before the 2024 halving to around $540 in July 2026. The gain so far this year is roughly 1,190%, with its market cap pushing into the front ranks of crypto. It’s also made it onto Forbes 2026’s “Top 10 Cryptocurrencies Worth Buying” list, appearing alongside BTC and ETH in the same frame.

This run isn’t just pure hype. The foundation is the 4th halving in November 2024, when the block reward was cut to 1.5625 ZEC and daily new supply fell from about 3,600 coins to 1,800. On top of that, this year’s January saw the SEC formally close its two-year investigation into the Zcash Foundation, Multicoin Capital has been quietly building positions since February, and Grayscale has been advancing the conversion of ZEC into a spot ETF. The narrative has shifted from “gray-area privacy” to “anti-censorship macro hedging.” On-chain, things are cooperating too—shielded pool holdings account for nearly one-third of circulating supply, indicating that real privacy demand is supporting the move.

But after the 1,190% surge, I’m a bit cautious. The risks are right there: in May, a four-year-old fake-currency exploit in the Orchard pool was revealed. Even though an emergency hard fork patched it, the confidence cracks are still there. The EU’s MiCA will phase out built-in anonymous features for certain coins in 2027, and some exchanges have already delisted privacy coins in advance. Also, ZEC still has some distance to cover from its 2016 all-time high, and this cycle’s futures positions are crowded—pullbacks could easily trigger a stampede.

💡 The halving plus the institutional narrative may have already been priced in to a large extent. There could be one last push before the Ironwood upgrade on July 28, but chasing ZEC at high levels offers worse value than BTC or ETH staying steady. Privacy is a long-term story; in the short term, it’s not a bad thing to take profits from the 1,190% run and not let them slip.