The privacy coin sector has experienced remarkable growth, expanding nearly fivefold from $6.2 billion to $30 billion over the past year, according to a September 22 research note from 21Shares. As reported by 21Shares, the sector is currently trading 216% above its October 2025 peak based on their dataset. According to CoinGecko, the privacy-coin category reached approximately $36.9 billion as of September 22, with Zcash leading at close to $25 billion and Monero at approximately $11.2 billion. 21Shares placed Zcash at around $20 billion in market capitalization when preparing their research, describing privacy as an increasingly important requirement for institutional blockchain use.
Bankless co-founder David Hoffman believes Zcash has captured the 'Bitcoin Bid' as investors move capital from Bitcoin to privacy assets. According to Hoffman's September 23 analysis, Zcash's market capitalization has climbed to roughly $26 billion after starting from a much smaller base, coinciding with growing interest in privacy, quantum computing risks and regulated access to the asset. Hoffman compared the current ZEC trade with Ethereum's 2021 run, when ETH moved from a market capitalization near $12 billion at its cycle bottom to roughly $554 billion at its peak. The move has been supported by institutional access improvements, with Grayscale converting its Zcash Trust into the ZCSH spot ETF on NYSE Arca on August 25, launching with roughly $304 million in assets under management. ZEC crossed $1,000 in early September as assets in the fund moved above $400 million.
NEAR Protocol has emerged as a smart contract alternative, with the token trading around $4.28 on September 24 after gaining more than 60% over the previous seven days, according to CoinGecko. According to Bankless co-founder David Hoffman, NEAR has won the 'smart contract bid' trophy of 2026 as traders look beyond established assets such as ETH and SOL. On September 23, NEAR spot trading went live on Hyperliquid through a NEAR/USDC market, with NEAR perpetual open interest standing near $344 million and positive funding rates showing long positions paying shorts. The network's broader privacy push includes staking-based AI services, with NEAR joining the growing wave of privacy-focused altcoins experiencing significant gains.
Bitwise's NEAR Staking ETP has passed $100 million in assets under management, with the fund holding 25.2 million NEAR tokens worth approximately $116 million at Tuesday's prices. As reported by Bitwise Europe, the token rally did most of the lifting, with NEAR price up 135% in 30 days while the fund needed no new investors to cross the $100 million line. The ETP, which listed in Frankfurt in July 2025, charges 0.85% annually and keeps 33% of staking rewards while investors receive the remaining 67%. At launch, Bitwise advertised a net staking return of 5.5%, though the current factsheet shows 3.01% due to network reward reductions.
According to SimpleSwap and SecureShift, privacy in 2026 is evolving beyond asset-level considerations to route-level properties. SimpleSwap's H1 2026 Swap Report shows 91.8% of swaps moved value between two networks, with seven in ten having a leg outside the four largest chains. SecureShift reports that privacy-related demand is increasingly expressed through routes users choose rather than through single dedicated privacy markets, with XMR now part of broader multi-chain swap environments. The industry consensus emphasizes that privacy is no longer a single feature attached to the coin, but something assembled from choices made at each network boundary. As SecureShift's CTO Sanket Mishra notes, "Privacy is no longer only about the asset someone holds. In a multi-chain swap, it also depends on how that asset travels, which networks it touches, and what each leg reveals."
