Monero Dethrones Zcash: XMR Hits 8-Year High at $677 While Zcash's Whole Team Quits — 5 Things Privacy Holders Must Know

Monero just took the privacy crown back — and it did it while its biggest rival was falling apart at the top. Reports on October 29 put Monero (XMR) around $677 after a jump of nearly 20% in 24 hours, taking its monthly gain above 62% and lifting it to its highest level in roughly eight years. At almost the same moment, Zcash (ZEC) was sliding after its entire core development company resigned, a whale publicly announced he was selling everything, and a fight over community grant money spilled into the open. For the first time in a long while, the question in privacy crypto is not just which coin is faster or more private. It is which project can still hold itself together.

This is not one green candle. It is a changing of the guard in crypto's oldest, most controversial corner: money designed not to be watched. Monero promises privacy by default; Zcash promises privacy by choice. This week, the market rewarded the default and punished the choice, at least for now. Below is what happened, what the numbers do and do not prove, and five checks every privacy-coin holder should run first.

What just happened: Monero overtakes Zcash

For most of late 2025, Zcash was the privacy trade. ZEC surged from around $30 in summer 2025 to above $750 by November, later pushing toward a peak near $1,690. Monero, by contrast, dealt with technical problems, criticism over mining centralisation, and a long stretch in Zcash's shadow.

That pattern has now reversed, according to late-October 2026 reports. Monero reclaimed the top privacy-coin spot by market capitalisation, while Zcash slipped to second. The week to November 1 told the same story in miniature: privacy coins were among few bright spots while Bitcoin traded around $77,800 and Ethereum around $2,260. Inside the sector, momentum had clearly shifted.

Analytics firm Santiment, cited in coverage of the rally, warned the surge had also brought crowd excitement and fear of missing out. That matters: Monero's move was fast, and it arrived while the wider market was still nervous after the $6.3 billion Binance hack and a brutal October. Fast moves in thin, delisting-prone markets can reverse just as quickly. The flip is real in the rankings, but not a guarantee of what happens next.

Why Monero is rallying: privacy by default, validated by pressure

Monero's pitch has never changed, and that is arguably the point. Every Monero transaction is private by default. Ring signatures mix a real spender in with decoys, stealth addresses give every payment a one-time address, and confidential amounts hide how much moved. There is no transparent mode to fall back on, and no toggle a user has to remember to switch on. One XMR is meant to be identical to any other XMR — fully fungible, in the language of the project.

Cake Wallet founder and CEO Vikrant Sharma, quoted in coverage of the rally, put the thesis plainly: as governments expand anti-money-laundering rules, know-your-customer checks, and on-chain monitoring, Monero's technology is being validated. Regulatory pressure and exchange delistings have reduced speculative access, he argued, but they have intensified conviction among users who genuinely need censorship-resistant money. In other words, the same forces that made Monero harder to buy may have made its remaining holders more committed — and the market, in his reading, is starting to price privacy itself as a scarce property.

There is a second driver: rotation. After a month in which Bitcoin fell 7.3% and Ethereum fell more than 16%, traders hunting for a working narrative found one in privacy. Monero's turn looks like the second leg of the rotation Zcash started in 2025. It is also a momentum trade: technical coverage in late October put Monero's relative strength index above 70 — textbook overbought territory — and warned that holding above $600 was critical. Overbought does not mean finished, but late buyers are paying a premium for a move that has already happened.

None of this makes Monero safe, legal everywhere, or easy to use. It is delisted or restricted on many regulated exchanges, which concentrates trading on fewer offshore venues and can amplify volatility. That is a structural risk that does not go away just because the price went up. Anyone considering XMR needs to understand that access itself — not just price — is part of the investment case. If you are new to self-custody, start with the basics first: our What Is Bitcoin? beginner's guide explains how wallets and keys actually work, and our best crypto wallets guide compares hot and cold storage before you move anything off an exchange.

Why Zcash is falling apart at the top: a resignation, a revolt, and a grant fight

Zcash's problem is not its cryptography. Zero-knowledge proofs — zk-SNARKs — remain one of the most elegant ideas in crypto: prove a transaction is valid without revealing who sent what to whom. Zcash's problem, in late October 2026, was governance. And governance problems, unlike price dips, make holders ask whether the roadmap itself is still intact.

First came the resignation. Reports on October 29 said every member of the Electric Coin Company (ECC), Zcash's core development company, had resigned after what CEO Josh Swihart described as a constructive discharge by the Bootstrap board, the nonprofit parent structure. The developers said they would form a new company and keep working in the Zcash ecosystem, but the sudden exit of the whole team cast immediate doubt on coordination, funding, and who speaks for the protocol. ZEC fell about 15% in a day on the news, according to that coverage.

Second came the grant fight. The Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) organisation, which distributes part of the miners' block reward, launched a Zcash Adoption Pool programme directing grants toward integration for vulnerable groups, including refugees without bank access. Supporters called private money a humanitarian imperative and a public good. Critics — including a large holder using the pseudonym "big z" — said the fund should finance cryptography, not political manifestos. Big z publicly announced a full liquidation of his ZEC holdings, arguing that ZCG's charter lets it distribute multimillion-dollar budgets without a coinholder vote.

The dispute then drew in bigger names. Developer Sean Bowe published a manifesto calling for a revision of ZCG financing, given the anomalous surge in the ZEC price. Investor Naval Ravikant backed the idea that a $50 million cap was more than enough for community grants. Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss pushed back on the public-good framing, arguing that a commercial network charging transaction fees cannot be a public good in that sense. Meanwhile, ZCG's supporters held their ground. As of November 1, ZEC was consolidating around $1,220 to $1,280, with a market capitalisation near $21.8 billion, after failing to break above $1,390 — still far below its late-September high near $1,698.

Two nuances matter. A team resigning from one company is not a protocol shutting down: Zcash is open-source, the departing developers say they will continue in the ecosystem, and a new wallet, CashZ, has been announced based on Zashi's code. And the grant fight is about real power — who controls millions in block-reward funding. For a project built on trust minimisation, that is a fundamental story, not gossip.

Monero vs Zcash: the comparison that actually decides it

Feature	Monero (XMR)	Zcash (ZEC)
Privacy model	Private by default — every transaction shielded	Optional — transparent or shielded, user chooses
Core technology	Ring signatures, stealth addresses, confidential amounts	zk-SNARK zero-knowledge proofs
Price around Nov 1, 2026	About $677 after a ~20% daily jump (reported Oct 29)	About $1,220–$1,280 after failing above $1,390
Recent momentum	Monthly gain above 62%; highest in roughly 8 years (reported)	Down ~15% in a day on ECC resignation news; well below ~$1,698 peak
Biggest strength	Consistency: no user error can leak a transaction	Flexibility: compliance-friendly transparent mode for exchanges
Biggest risk right now	Delistings, thin regulated access, overbought momentum	Governance crisis: ECC exit, grant-funding fight, whale selling
Exchange access	Restricted on many regulated platforms	Wider, but still under regulatory scrutiny

The table exposes a decade-old trade-off. Monero's critics say privacy by default invites delistings. Zcash's critics say optional privacy creates a two-tier system where the few who shield stand out. This week, the market sided with the first model and punished the second model's governance, not its maths — and governance can be repaired faster than cryptography can be rebuilt.

5 things privacy holders must know right now

Whether you hold XMR, ZEC, both, or neither, run this checklist before your next move. It is not financial advice, but it is the difference between a decision and a reaction.

• Check 1 — Where can you actually sell? Privacy coins are delisted on many regulated exchanges. Confirm that your venue still lists the coin, that withdrawals work, and that you are not relying on a single offshore platform. Access risk is price risk in this sector.
• Check 2 — Is the rally overbought? Monero's RSI above 70 and a 62% monthly gain are classic late-move signals. That does not mean a top is in, but it does mean new buyers should size positions as if a 20–30% pullback would not be surprising.
• Check 3 — Who builds Zcash now? Watch for the new company the departed ECC team promised, whether CashZ ships a clean migration from Zashi, and whether ZCG funding is reformed or simply re-litigated. Until those answers land, ZEC carries a governance discount.
• Check 4 — Is your wallet actually private? Holding XMR or shielded ZEC on an exchange that links your identity to deposits and withdrawals gives you price exposure, not privacy. Self-custody, address hygiene, and understanding what your wallet reveals matter more than the ticker you picked.
• Check 5 — What is your exit if regulation moves? Privacy coins live under permanent regulatory scrutiny, from exchange rules to proposals like Russia's draft crypto framework. Have a plan for delisting, withdrawal freezes, or tax reporting before you need one — not after a headline forces it.

What most people get wrong about privacy coins

Myth one: privacy coins are only for criminals. Journalists, activists, businesses protecting supplier pricing, and ordinary users who do not want salaries or donations visible on a public ledger all have legitimate reasons to want transaction privacy. Cash is private by default, and carrying banknotes proves nothing. The counterpoint is also real: privacy tools can be abused, which is why regulators watch them closely. Both things can be true.

Myth two: Zcash's optional privacy is strictly better because it pleases regulators. Optional privacy only works if most people use it. If only a small minority shields transactions, those transactions can stand out rather than blend in. That is the "privacy poverty line" critics warn about: the people with the most to hide, or the most to lose, become the most visible. Monero avoids that trap by making everyone look the same — at the cost of making the whole network harder for regulated exchanges to list.

Myth three: a team quitting means the coin is dead. Teams quit companies, fork code, and re-form all the time in open-source crypto. What matters is whether development, releases, and wallet maintenance continue, and whether funding disputes get resolved. Santiment data cited in late-October coverage noted Zcash developer activity had already fallen to multi-year lows before the resignation — a warning sign independent of the headlines.

Myth four: privacy is a solved problem once you buy the right coin. It is not. Your exchange account, IP address, wallet reuse, and counterparties can leak more than the blockchain hides. Privacy is a practice, not a purchase. If you are starting from scratch, read our how to buy Bitcoin guide and our crypto staking explainer before putting serious money into any privacy asset.

Three scenarios for XMR and ZEC from here

Predictions in this section are scenarios, not forecasts. They map what would have to happen for each path, so readers can judge which one the evidence supports as new information arrives.

Bull case for Monero, bear case for Zcash: Monero holds above $600, the $677 level becomes support rather than a spike, and Zcash's governance fight drags on without a credible new development home. In that world, the privacy rotation continues, XMR grinds toward the $700 level traders have watched for months, and ZEC trades at a persistent discount until its builders prove continuity.

Base case — both cool off, then diverge on fundamentals: Monero pulls back 15–25% from overbought levels as FOMO fades, Zcash stabilises around $1,200 while its new team and wallet plans take shape, and the real contest moves to development activity, shielded adoption, and exchange access over the next quarter.

Bear case for both: A regulatory shock, a major delisting, or a wider market leg down — Bitcoin is still 38% below its all-time high and sentiment, measured by the Fear and Greed Index, sat at 34 (Fear) on November 1 — hits privacy coins hardest because they are the least liquid and most politically exposed. In that world, the XMR-versus-ZEC debate becomes secondary to simply being able to exit at all. That is why Check 1 and Check 5 above come first.

What this means if you hold, or are thinking about buying

Do not chase the Monero candle because it is green, and do not buy Zcash because it looks cheap after a 15% drop. Both impulses have punished traders in this sector before. Instead, ask three questions. First, do you actually need transaction privacy, or do you want price exposure to a privacy narrative? Those are different products, and they imply different wallets, venues, and risks. Second, can you hold through a delisting headline without panic-selling? If not, position size is the problem, not the coin. Third, are you following development and governance, or just price? In privacy crypto, the first two decide whether the third survives.

For long-term holders, the flip is a reminder to diversify even inside a thesis: holding only the privacy leader of the moment means holding single-project governance risk — exactly what Zcash holders just experienced. For newcomers, learn custody before speculation. A private coin in a custodial account that can freeze withdrawals is not private money; it is a price bet with extra steps.

Context matters too. Bitcoin dominance was near 59–60% on November 1, total market capitalisation was around $2.6 trillion, and October ETF flows were negative — roughly $515 million out of Bitcoin funds and a record $1.61 billion out of Ethereum funds. Privacy coins rallied not because the market was healthy, but because one narrative worked while everything else did not. Narratives that run against the tide tend to be sharper and more violent in both directions.

Frequently asked questions

Is Monero now bigger than Zcash?

By late-October 2026 rankings, yes — Monero reclaimed the top privacy-coin spot as XMR surged and ZEC sold off. Rankings can flip back quickly, so treat this as a snapshot, not a verdict.

Why did Zcash fall if its technology still works?

Because the market was pricing governance, not cryptography. The resignation of the entire Electric Coin Company team, a public fight over Zcash Community Grants funding, and a large holder announcing a full sale created uncertainty about who builds and funds Zcash next — even though the protocol itself kept running.

Is Monero's $677 price a new all-time high?

Reports described it as Monero's highest level in roughly eight years, after a near-20% daily jump and a monthly gain above 62%. Different trackers print different intraday highs, and older Monero peaks from 2018 are measured differently across sources, so readers should treat $677 as the reported surge level for October 29, not as a universally agreed record price.

Is it safe to buy Monero or Zcash on a regular exchange?

It depends on your jurisdiction and venue. Many regulated exchanges restrict or delist privacy coins, so availability varies widely. Check listing status, withdrawal rules, and local law before buying, keep amounts you cannot afford to have frozen off a single platform, and never assume that buying on an exchange gives you the same privacy as holding in your own wallet.

Does using a privacy coin make my transactions invisible?

No. A privacy coin hides on-chain details, but exchanges, IP addresses, wallet reuse, and counterparties can still leak information. Privacy requires good operational practice on top of the right coin, and it does not exempt anyone from tax or legal obligations in their country.

Should I switch from Zcash to Monero now?

That depends on your thesis, not this week's ranking. If you value privacy by default and accept delisting risk, Monero's case is stronger today. If you value Zcash's technology and believe its governance will be repaired, the sell-off may look like an opportunity — if you track development continuity, not just price. Never switch an entire position on one headline.

Conclusion: privacy won the week, but the project that survives wins the cycle

Monero dethroning Zcash is a genuine changing of the guard — a 62% monthly gain, a reported $677 surge, a $21.8 billion rival sliding on governance. But the deeper lesson is older than this week. Privacy coins do not rise and fall on cryptography alone. They rise on conviction, fall on governance, and survive on whether anyone keeps building when headlines stop.

Monero's holders must now prove a momentum-built rally can survive a cooldown and the regulatory pressure that made it scarce. Zcash's community must prove a project can lose its core company and still ship, fund, and coordinate. Whichever answers first will likely lead the next leg — and holders should watch development, not just price, for that answer. Sources: BitRss on Monero's fresh records and FOMO warning, BitRss on Monero reclaiming the top spot, U.Today on Zcash's $1,280 level and grant fight, TechGaged on privacy-coin momentum, and BTCC's Monero vs Zcash comparison.