Privacy coins rise 213%, leading crypto sector gains: Glassnode

While most of crypto has spent 2026 licking its wounds, one corner of the market has been quietly doing victory laps. Privacy coins have surged 213% since Bitcoin’s October 2025 peak, making them the only sector in Glassnode’s classification system trading above those levels. Everything else is underwater. Bitcoin itself is down 36% from that peak. The median top-200 asset has fallen 58%. DeFi is off 27%. Gaming tokens have cratered 74%. And then there’s the privacy sector, casually quadrupling its market cap in a year. The numbers behind the breakout According to Glassnode data released on September 7, 2026, the total market cap of privacy coins among the top 200 assets has ballooned from $7.1B to $33.6B over the past twelve months. That’s a nearly fivefold increase, and the pace is accelerating: roughly $13B of that growth landed in just the last 30 days. In that same 30-day window, the privacy sector posted a 90% gain, leading a broader market rebound that saw 91.5% of top-200 assets move higher. The standout performer, and it’s not particularly close, is Zcash. ZEC has delivered a 2,496% return year-to-date, vaulting from the 82nd position in overall market rankings all the way...