Monero vs Zcash: two ways to build a privacy coin

Until autumn 2025 Monero was the larger privacy coin. On 5 November Zcash was worth $21.0 billion and Monero $11.8 billion, by CoinGecko data, and ZEC traded about six times more volume over 24 hours. The Monero vs Zcash comparison comes down to one design choice: Monero hides every payment, and Zcash lets you decide.

Privacy by default or by choice

Monero hides three things in every transaction. Ring signatures mix the real sender with decoy outputs from other users. Stealth addresses create a one-time address for each payment, so the recipient’s public address never appears on the chain. RingCT hides the amount. You cannot switch any of this off.

Zcash gives you two kinds of address. A transparent address works like a Bitcoin one, and anyone can trace it. A shielded address uses a zero-knowledge proof, which lets the network check that a payment is valid without seeing the sender, the recipient or the amount. You can move coins between the two pools, and each move leaves a visible trace.

Different origins

Monero launched in April 2014 as a fork of Bytecoin. Its developers objected that most Bytecoin had been mined before the public announcement, so they restarted the chain with a fair distribution. Monero means “coin” in Esperanto.

Zcash started as Zerocash, a 2014 paper by cryptographers from Johns Hopkins, MIT, Tel Aviv University and the Technion. Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn built a company around it, and the network went live on 28 October 2016. On that first day buyers paid up to $3,191.93 per ZEC, which remains its all-time high.

Supply rules

• Zcash: capped at 21 million ZEC, like Bitcoin, with about 17.0 million in circulation and a halving every four years;
• Monero: no cap. Since June 2022 miners have received a fixed 0.6 XMR per block forever, a design Monero calls tail emission. About 18.8 million XMR circulate.

Monero’s developers chose tail emission so that miners keep an income after the main issuance ends. Each year it adds about 0.8% to supply, and the share keeps falling as supply grows.

Prices and pressure from regulators

Monero set its record of $797.73 on 14 January 2026 and trades 21% below it at $627.72. Zcash rose tenfold in autumn 2025 and now sits at $1,252.81, still 61% below its launch-day price.

Exchanges have already dropped Monero in several markets. Binance delisted XMR in February 2024, and Kraken stopped offering it to customers in the European Economic Area later that year. From July 2027 the EU’s AML regulation bars crypto service providers from keeping anonymous accounts or handling coins that hide their owners. An exchange can support Zcash through transparent addresses alone, an option Monero does not offer.

What it means for you

If you want privacy without decisions, Monero gives it to every payment, at the cost of fewer exchanges that list it. If you need an exchange in the EU after 2027, Zcash’s transparent addresses keep more doors open, but you have to shield your coins yourself. Our guides to Monero and Zcash cover the full history, and our overview of the eight sectors shows where privacy coins sit next to the rest of the market.

Prices as of 5 November 2026, from CoinGecko. This is not investment or legal advice.