Zcash: Is not the Swiss Bank of Crypto

A short research paper + live tape on ZEC. Its not the Swiss Bank of Cryptocurrencies

Zcash Chart on Daily 11/5/2025

Indicator: CCI Adaptive

Zcash is not truly private

Zcash’s cryptography is solid. However, its privacy in practice isn’t. Because shielding is optional and real users routinely hop between transparent and shielded pools, simple heuristics and network metadata shrink the anonymity set and leak linkages.

Our reasons for why we believe Zcash privacy is misleading

1. Opt‑in privacy degrades anonymity. In the canonical study of the chain, Kappos et al. showed Zcash usage patterns allow simple heuristics to collapse the anonymity set. In their dataset, fully private transactions were only 0.3%; the rest were transparent or cross‑pool, giving analysts leverage. Their heuristics linked a majority of z→t activity to founders/miners, illustrating how structure leaks.

2. We can still trace most flows. When Chainalysis rolled out Zcash support, less than 1% of transactions were fully shielded, enabling value and at least one address to be shown for >99% of activity. Even if that share has since improved, the long tail of t‑address usage remains an attack surface.

3. Shielded adoption is rising—but still not universal. Recent reporting shows shielded supply climbing to ~4.5–5.0M ZEC (~27–30% of supply) with ~30% of transactions touching the pool. That’s progress, not perfection.

Who does better, operationally?

Monero (XMR) — privacy by mandate.Ring signatures (now ring size 16), stealth addresses, and RingCT are always on. There is no transparent mode; you can’t “accidentally” go public. Optional view keys enable audits without de‑anonymizing chain‑wide. That default posture prevents the common foot‑guns ZEC users run into.

Pirate Chain (ARRR) — shielded‑only.Assuming you meant Pirate Chain by “Private chain”: it enforces zk‑SNARK shielding for 100% of transfers, removing the t‑address trap entirely. That maximizes the anonymity set and minimizes operator error at the cost of ecosystem reach.

Here’s our read: the current ZEC pump looks like “privacy-themed, compliance-friendly beta.” Regulators and big venues will spotlight the coin they can list, monitor, and sell to institutions. Zcash fits that bill because optional privacy gives analytics vendors a handle, and major, regulated exchanges can support it without blowing up banking relationships.

Monero does not get that treatment. That split isn’t an accident; it’s a feature.

• Coinbase lists/markets ZEC (even offers ZEC-perps); Monero is absent. That’s not about which coin is “more private” in practice it’s about which coin is easier to underwrite from an AML/traceability standpoint.

• Monero gets delisted or fenced off in stricter regions; users migrate to non-custodial rails. Exchanges are explicit that the friction is regulatory.

So yes, we suspect the “Zcash revival” is being hyped to draw attention away from default-private systems (Monero; shielded-only chains) and toward a version of “privacy” that fits neatly into the compliance stack.