Zcash made its yearly high yesterday. Bitcoin made its in October

Zcash set its highest price in twelve months yesterday. Bitcoin set its own last October and has spent the eleven months since going down. That contrast sits behind the claim that privacy coins are the only sector still making highs, which BeInCrypto put forward today.

We could not read that article, because the site refuses automated requests. So we rebuilt the test from daily closes and category data on CoinGecko instead, and the claim survives with two large qualifications.

When each coin set its twelve-month high

For each coin we took 366 daily closes and found which day inside that window held the highest price. A high near the end of the window means the coin is still climbing. A high near the start means everything since has been a decline.

• Zcash: high on day 365 of 366, which was yesterday. Now 4.6% below it.
• Monero: high on day 130, around eight months ago. Now 24.2% below it.
• Bitcoin: high on day 30, back in October. Now 36.7% below it.
• Ether: high on day 6. Now 47.3% below it.
• Dogecoin: high on day 7. Now 68.9% below it.

Every large coin outside privacy set its twelve-month high in the first weeks of that window. Monero, the second privacy coin, sits eight months back, and zcash is the only one whose high is days old.

The sector is two coins

The first qualification is size. The privacy category on CoinGecko is worth $30.36 billion, and zcash accounts for $19.79 billion of it. Add monero and you have $29.82 billion, or 98.2% of the sector. Decred, Nockchain and Pirate Chain share the remaining 1.8% with everything smaller.

The spread among the five largest is wider than the gap between most sectors. Over twelve months zcash gained 2,389.6% and monero 97.7%, while decred lost 3.6%. Calling that a sector move flatters three coins that did not participate.

Above which high

Measure against all-time records rather than twelve-month ones and privacy stops leading. Weighted by market cap, the top DeFi tokens trade 41.3% below their records and the top layer 1s 41.8% below, while privacy sits 53.7% below. Memecoins are at 82.8% and AI tokens at 72.9%.

Over twelve months the median privacy coin gained 97.7%, against a median loss of 24.4% in DeFi, 38.0% in AI, 48.4% in layer 1 and 58.3% in memecoins. The sector leads on what it earned and trails on how close it stands to its own record.

An ETF and a crowded entry

Grayscale listed the Zcash ETF on NYSE Arca on 25 August under the ticker ZCSH, the first spot product for the token. It opened holding about 387,000 ZEC, worth roughly $313 million, converted from a trust that has existed since October 2017. The prospectus puts the annual fee at 2.50%, which is several times what bitcoin funds charge.

Zcash broke out three days before that listing. Whether the fund caused the move or arrived in time to catch it, the money now has a route in that did not exist a month ago.

We computed the 14-day relative strength index on daily closes, using Wilder smoothing:

• Zcash 79.2, up 130.6% over 30 days.
• Dash 76.9, up 107.9%.
• Monero 70.4, up 41.8%.
• Decred 64.4, up 23.0%.
• Bitcoin 62.4, up 21.7%.

Above 70 is the conventional overbought line, and three of these five sit above it. Crowded entries can stay crowded for weeks, so read that as a warning about your timing rather than a forecast. Zcash also showed up in our count of the strongest altcoins of the last 48 hours, and the memecoin paying its holders in zcash has been running all week.

Watch monero rather than zcash. Monero carries a third of the sector and sits 24.2% below its own twelve-month high, so it has room to confirm the move or to refuse it. Zcash at 4.6% off a high made yesterday cannot tell you much either way.

Nothing here should be taken as financial advice; treat it as information to consider.