When BTC was still fluctuating around $75,000, an old-school privacy coin suddenly became the market focus.
On September 17, Zcash (ZEC) saw a 24-hour increase of up to 23%, approaching $1,400 during trading, significantly outperforming BTC and most mainstream crypto assets. CoinMarketCap data shows that as of September 17, ZEC's cumulative increase over the past 30 days has approached 190%.
One of the direct catalysts for this wave of market activity was Matt Huang, co-founder of Paradigm, publicly confirming Paradigm's holding of ZEC and defining Zcash as Bitcoin's “private complement.”
However, attributing the rise simply to “Paradigm bought ZEC” may underestimate the true changes behind this wave of market activity.
Privacy is becoming a core infrastructure topic in the Crypto market once again.
First, a summary
- ZEC rose approximately 23% in 24 hours, with a nearly 190% increase over the past month;
- Paradigm confirmed its holding of ZEC and emphasized its privacy attributes;
- Zcash recently completed NU7 governance voting, with 99.9% support to reduce block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds;
- 98.9% of participants supported maintaining the existing Bitcoin-style halving mechanism;
- Long-term topics such as AI data analysis, on-chain transparency, and quantum computing are bringing privacy back into market focus;
- What is more worth observing in the current market is: Is privacy transitioning from a niche narrative back into a requirement for Crypto infrastructure?
Why is Paradigm talking about Zcash now?
Paradigm is not new to the Zcash ecosystem.
In March of this year, the Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL) announced the completion of over $25 million in seed funding, with participation from Paradigm, a16z Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, and other institutions.
Matt Huang's recent public statement affirming Paradigm's holding of ZEC effectively redirected the market's attention back to Zcash itself.
Notably, his wording was also significant.
He did not describe Zcash merely as a “privacy coin,” but defined it as Bitcoin's privacy complement.
This actually corresponds to a changing market environment:
Bitcoin is becoming increasingly institutionalized, and on-chain transactions are becoming easier to analyze.
Exchanges, on-chain analytics firms, and AI tools can continuously track addresses, fund flows, and transaction relationships. As on-chain transparency increases, asset owners' demand for which information should be public and which should be hidden becomes more evident.
Zcash offers an alternative model.
Through zero-knowledge proofs, users can complete transactions without disclosing specific transaction amounts and the identities of the parties involved.
The stronger the AI, the more important privacy may become
In the past, the core selling point for privacy coins was more about “anonymity.”
However, today's discussions have changed.
As AI and on-chain data analysis capabilities improve, information on public blockchains is becoming increasingly easier to correlate and decipher.
A single on-chain transaction may not carry much information, but when addresses, transaction times, fund paths, and other public data are combined over time, the financial behavior of individuals or institutions may be reconstructed with greater detail.
Therefore, privacy does not necessarily mean “hiding illegal transactions.”
For institutions, it may also mean:
Avoiding competitors seeing their fund movements; not wanting the market to know about large transactions in advance; not wanting all assets and transaction relationships to be permanently public.
This is why privacy infrastructure is beginning to regain the attention of institutions and developers.
When discussing Zcash, Matt Huang specifically mentioned AI-driven network attack capabilities and long-term security issues like quantum computing, and he supports continued funding for developers.
Zcash is also undergoing changes
This recent rise isn’t only driven by external institutional narratives.
Zcash recently completed an important NU7 governance vote.
Approximately 2.4 million ZEC participated in the voting, accounting for about two-thirds of approximately 3.6 million eligible ZEC at that time.
The results were quite concentrated:
99.9% supported shortening the target block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds; 98.9% supported maintaining the existing Bitcoin-style halving mechanism.
If the implementation follows the voting results, the transaction confirmation experience on the Zcash network will improve, while the current issuance pace will not change due to NU7.
This adds a second layer of logic to the recent ZEC market dynamics:
The market is trading not just a “privacy narrative,” but also network upgrades and supply expectations.
However, it should be noted that the specific activation date for NU7 has yet to be determined, with the development team planning to finalize upgrade details by the end of September.
ZEC is beginning to price separately from BTC
This may be the most noteworthy aspect of this wave of market activity.
In the past, alt-assets like ZEC found it difficult to completely decouple from BTC's movements.
However, recently, ZEC's gains have significantly surpassed the broader market. CoinDesk data showed that on September 17, ZEC surged 23%, while BTC gained less than 1% during the same period.
This indicates that funds are becoming willing to pay a premium for more specific narratives.
Previously, market attention focused on AI, RWA, and PayFi; now, there is a relatively established yet reactivated direction emerging:
Privacy.
This does not mean that all privacy coins will receive the same influx of funds.
However, ZEC's current market activity at least indicates one thing:
As on-chain data becomes increasingly transparent and AI analysis capabilities improve, the very notion of “everything can be seen” may also become a new market demand.
What truly deserves observation regarding ZEC is no longer just how much more it can rise.
Instead, it’s a bigger question:
As Crypto becomes increasingly transparent, will privacy become the core infrastructure of Crypto again?
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