Altcoin Market Drops 58% Since Peak, Anonymous Cryptos Gain 213%

Three hundred thirty-five days after the peak in October 2025, Bitcoin is still trading 36% below its all-time high. For most altcoins, the situation is much worse. Among the 200 largest assets excluding stablecoins, the median asset has lost 58% since that peak. Only one sector stands out, and it is neither artificial intelligence nor memecoins. Anonymous cryptos, led by Zcash, have shown a positive performance since that peak. This figure deserves a closer look. Key points of this article:

• Bitcoin has traded 36% below its all-time high after 335 days, while anonymous cryptos, led by Zcash, have shown extraordinary positive performance.
• The market capitalization of anonymous cryptos has quadrupled in a year, with Zcash representing 62% of this booming sector.

The altcoin market is collapsing, while privacy coins soar by 213%. Data published by Glassnode on September 7 is unequivocal. Out of ten sectors tracked by the on-chain analysis platform, nine show a loss since the peak on October 6, 2025: DeFi down 27%, exchanges down 36%, layer 1 down 40%, AI down 42%, and real-world assets (RWA) down 57%. Only one sector is climbing, anonymous cryptos (privacy coins), up +213%. Nine out of ten sectors are still below their October peak: only anonymous cryptos show a positive performance. Source: Glassnode, September 7, 2026. It is not the market that is rebounding. It is a sector that masks everything else. Over the last 30 days, all ten sectors have progressed, with privacy leading at +90%. However, this recent improvement does not change the picture for the year. Only 25 assets out of 200 show a gain since January, and the median asset has lost 55% during this period. ZEC alone accounts for 62% of the privacy sector. Here is where the story gets complicated. The total market capitalization of anonymous cryptos has risen from $7.1 billion a year ago to $33.6 billion today, according to the same Glassnode report, roughly the market cap of Tron. Nearly half of this increase occurred in the last thirty days. The total market capitalization of anonymous cryptos (ZEC, XMR, DASH, and others) has more than quadrupled in a year. Source: Glassnode, September 7, 2026. Zcash is the main driver. The token has moved from the 82nd to the 7th rank globally by market capitalization, with a progression of 2,496% since January. Alone, it represents 62% of the sector's weight. Monero (XMR) has doubled during the same period, and three anonymous cryptos (DASH, XMR, ZEN) have outperformed Bitcoin over the last 90 days. But remove Zcash from the calculation, and the market cap-weighted basket of anonymous cryptos has only risen by 85% since January. Solid, but significantly less spectacular. David Hoffman tested diversification, not all in ZEC. This bet on privacy was made publicly by one man long before Glassnode documented it. In May, David Hoffman, co-founder of the media outlet Bankless (a historical reference in the Ethereum ecosystem), sold all his ETH position to spread it across five tokens: VVV, NEAR, ZEC, HYPE, and especially LIT, on which he placed half the amount. The exit earned him a barrage of criticism. A co-founder of a pro-Ethereum media outlet selling all his ETH does not go unnoticed. Three months later, the compiled results by DeFi analyst Ignas speak for themselves. LIT gains 369%, ZEC 110%, NEAR 54%, while the ETH held for comparison only progresses by 8%. Only VVV, at -6%, breaks the picture. The details matter as much as the result. Hoffman did not bet everything on Zcash, contrary to what the sector's performance might suggest to those who only look at the overall figure. He spread his bet across five lines, and it is LIT, not ZEC, that has performed best for him. The lesson is not that one had to guess the right token. It is that one had to step away from a single one, ETH, to no longer depend on a single narrative. Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, anticipated this shift long before the numbers confirmed it. According to him, privacy would become the dominant trend of the cycle. Glassnode's data supports him regarding the direction of the movement. They also indicate, with figures to back it up, that this movement relies on a single token much more than on a collective conviction.

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