Privacy Coins Surge as ZEC Rises 17% Toward $1,000, DASH Tops $50

TradingKey - Privacy coin sector surges across the board! Both ZEC and DASH soar 17%, with DCR, XTZ, and others following suit.

On September 4, privacy-focused cryptocurrencies staged a broad-based rally, with the entire sector surging over 6% intraday to $71 billion, while 24-hour trading volume jumped nearly 30% to $5 billion. Among them, ZEC and DASH both rose about 17% intraday—the former approaching the $1,000 threshold to hit its highest level since 2018, and the latter breaching $50 to reach a new high since May this year—while other privacy coins such as DCR and XTZ followed the upward trend.

ZEC price chart, Source: TradingView

Boosted by dovish signals from Federal Reserve Governor Waller, market risk appetite surged significantly, pushing Bitcoin's price above $82,000 this morning and reigniting bullish sentiment across the crypto market, from which privacy coins also benefited. However, this rally in privacy coins was also driven by positive news regarding technological transitions and defensive demand in response to regulatory scrutiny of privacy and compliance tools.

ECC, the Zcash development team, made a breakthrough in transitioning from a PoW to a PoS mechanism, significantly reducing network maintenance costs and introducing expectations of staking yields. In addition, on-chain data shows that total assets in ZEC's shielded pool reached an all-time high in 2026, boosting market confidence in the practical application of its selective compliance and zero-knowledge proof (ZK-Proof) technology.

As global transaction tracking and taxation mechanisms on mainstream public blockchains become increasingly strict, some on-chain funds have begun shifting toward assets with strong privacy attributes. Meanwhile, DASH has benefited from growing essential demand as a decentralized micropayment tool in certain regions, which, combined with optimizations in coin-mixing technology, has attracted a large amount of store-of-value capital.

Although ZEC and DASH possess strong technical and community foundations, regulatory scrutiny of privacy coins in various countries remains strict, and some CEXs still pose delisting risks. ZEC was previously delisted by cryptocurrency exchange ZEC, causing its price to plummet and even triggering market fears that it would go to zero.