Bitcoin peaked at $126,000 last October. It is still down nearly 40%. But somewhere in this market, something has actually made money since then. Joining me again is Alice Liu, Head of Research at CoinMarketCap. Alice, welcome back to Wall Street to Mena. Is there anything in crypto that has actually made money since then?
Yes. Out of the 25 biggest cryptos, only four are trading above where they were the day Bitcoin peaked. Those tokens are Zcash, Monero, Hyperliquid, and wrapped BTC. Within those four, two are privacy tokens. That is why on CoinMarketCap the privacy sector saw a big boost in the recent uptrend. Privacy tokens are one of the trending sectors in crypto right now.
Privacy coins — most of our viewers will never have heard of them. What are they and why were they left for dead?
Most people do not realise this about Bitcoin — it is not anonymous. Every Bitcoin payment ever made sits on a public ledger visible to anyone. It is like doing your banking on a billboard. Privacy tokens were invented to fix that. The payment still settles and the network can still verify the transaction, but the amount, the sender, and the receiver stay hidden. The two leading projects are Monero — privacy always on for every transaction, the purest play in the space — and Zcash, which is optional. It is transparent like Bitcoin, but you can shield specific parts of the transaction. The most recent development is the Grayscale US spot Zcash ETF approval, which welcomed over $400 million in inflows within two weeks. That is bringing more institutional adoption into the sector.
Zcash is up over 2,000% in a year. Is that real demand or something else happening under the hood?
It is both, in sequence. The repricing we are seeing is real. Zcash has risen from $700 to above $1,100. That movement initially looked like a short squeeze from the derivative side. But this week the performance looks healthier — it contains actual demand and repricing of the privacy sector. To be exact, it is a 2,364% uptrend. Zcash is now sitting in the top ten largest crypto coins at above $20 billion in market cap. And the open interest for Zcash has tripled within the past two weeks — from $700 million in July to a record of $2.4 billion on September 4th. We continue to see a stronger price hold.
It is a monster macro week. ECB, US inflation data, a Senate crypto vote, and the Fed. What is the one number Bitcoin has to hold?
It is $83,000 — Bitcoin's 50-day moving average. From a technical perspective this number is a milestone. And you are right about the upcoming two weeks. The ECB meets Wednesday the 10th, US CPI Thursday with consensus at 3.4%. And native to crypto is the US Senate Clarity Act procedural vote on Monday the 15th. On Polymarket, it is currently pricing in a 13 to 18% chance of passing — down from 80% in February. If the Clarity Act procedural vote passes on the 15th, we will see a more optimistic price. But so far the funding for BTC is cooling while the price is holding up, which is a healthy sign.
What should viewers take away from this rally right now?
What has beaten Bitcoin since the top is privacy coins. I know some of these names are new concepts even to crypto-native users. But the data is real and the rotation is usually fast-paced. With Zcash's performance recently and other sector pumps, it seems the altcoin season is making a comeback. When that happens, crypto delivers specific performance boosts into different sectors.
Is altcoin season officially back?
Based on our CMC altcoin season index, it is sitting at 45 right now. The season officially starts at 75. Today we are at 45. But it is a good sign where this direction is going — yesterday the market printed a 51. A week ago the number was 32. Continuously, especially over the past two weeks, driven by the DeFi sector and privacy tokens coming back into the market, the market is ready for altcoin season to begin positioning.
Are privacy coins even legal?
It is a very controversial debate. In some markets, exchanges prefer not to list privacy tokens because of AML concerns around the ability to identify the owner of the transaction. Japan and South Korea have barred listings. EU rules push anonymous coins off regulated venues. But in the US and some other parts of the world with more crypto-native activity, regulators have a more open gesture toward this topic — especially with the recent Grayscale ETF approval. It is a nuanced area and we are not lawyers, but we are monitoring very closely where this industry is going.
Thank you Alice. Great to have you back with us again.
Thank you very much.
