The coins that hide transactions are climbing while bitcoin falls

Between September 1 and November 13, 2025 Zcash went from $40.55 to $519.51, a rise of 1181 percent; the highest close of the period was $645.44 on November 7. Over the same stretch Bitcoin fell 9 percent, from $109,237 to $99,692.

What they are, and why now

The coins everyone is talking about these days are built to hide those two things. When you use zcash, monero or dash with the privacy function switched on, whoever looks at the ledger can’t see who sent how much to whom. It’s the difference between paying in cash and paying by card.

Until a few weeks ago they were seen as a niche for people with something to hide, and that judgment kept them on the fringes. Then something happened that hadn’t been seen in years. While bitcoin was falling below a hundred thousand dollars and the market was burning more than a billion in forced liquidations, they took off.

The rule that comes into force in seven weeks

The rule has already been approved, with the first transmission due in 2027 on the transactions of 2026. In practice, from next year every purchase, sale and transfer made on a registered platform will reach the tax office automatically, the way bank data already does.

So whoever is buying these coins is betting on beating a deadline more than on a technology. It’s an uncomfortable reading, but the timing fits: the climb starts in September, speeds up in October, and the rule’s calendar has been public for months.

What an exchange reports, to be precise

A platform will have to send the tax office of the country you live in your full identity, your tax residence with its identification number, and every single transaction: crypto to currency, crypto to crypto and outgoing transfers. It will also send the balance of every asset you hold. The self-certification has to be renewed every 36 months.

From January 1, 2026 trading platforms have to send the tax authorities: the user’s full identity; tax residence and identification number; every transaction from crypto to currency, from crypto to crypto and every transfer; the balance for each type of asset. The self-certification is renewed every 36 months and the first transmission is due on January 31, 2027.

Put another way, for tax purposes a trading platform becomes the same as a bank. The tax office will know everything automatically, without having to ask. And here’s the irony: almost everyone is buying these coins on exactly those platforms, with ID, selfie and residence already handed over.

The numbers, recomputed by us

Bitcoin, over the same stretch, went from $109,237 to $99,692: down 9 percent, and down 20 from the October 6 high. The story is that gap, more than zcash’s number on its own: in a falling market, three coins from the same family are climbing together.

Two statements went along with the move, and they’re worth mentioning because the market listened. On October 1 Naval Ravikant wrote that bitcoin is insurance against state currencies and zcash is insurance against bitcoin. Arthur Hayes said he expects zcash at ten thousand dollars. The first came before a sixty percent jump in a day, the second before a thirty percent one. Those are the source’s numbers, not ours, and they should be taken for what they are: coincidences of timing in a market that was already running.

Put bluntly: for two years the private coins were “criminal stuff”, then a date turned up on the tax office’s calendar and they became an investment category.

And on the other side, supply halved

And there’s a measure that shows how much of that demand is about using the coins and how much is a bet. It’s the number of tokens sitting in the shielded part of the ledger, in addresses that really hide sender and amount. There are 4.9 million of them, between 27 and 30 percent of everything that exists, the highest level on record. Shielded transactions are 7 times what they were before the wallet upgrade.

Money that never touches the platforms moved in as well: a regulated fund that gives exposure to zcash without having to custody it managed $137 million. And on dash the top hundred addresses held 37 percent of supply, the highest concentration of the decade. That figure cuts both ways. It can be read as accumulation by people who know something, or as the fragility of a market in few hands.

There’s work under the price too

The Ethereum Foundation set up a privacy team of forty-seven researchers, engineers and cryptographers. The aim is to bring private transactions onto the main blockchain rather than onto a layer built on top. The decision comes from the foundation behind the sector’s second-biggest network, so it signals a direction.

And in October zcash released the upgrade that makes the shielded wallet usable from a phone. That’s where this technology has always stalled: it worked, but only for people who knew how to use it. How much of this climb survives depends on which of the two forces weighs more: the tax deadline, which is an event, or usability, which is a process.