After Zcash: The Privacy Tokens I'd Research Next
I missed Zcash’s run. I’d already written about Taiki Maeda’s Zcash bull case and what Zcash’s privacy does and doesn’t hide. Now I’m looking at other privacy projects, which is probably when I should be extra careful.
My research shortlist is RAIL and NYM, with ARX and AZTEC as earlier, more speculative bets. None has earned a confident buy from me yet.
All valuations below are rounded US dollars from CoinGecko, checked in October 2026. Market cap values circulating tokens. Fully diluted valuation (FDV) also counts supply outside circulation; future issuance can add more.
Why Zcash woke up
Zcash launched in 2016. Its market cap was around $440m at the end of 2023, versus roughly $19bn now. That’s a huge recovery, although it had earlier boom-and-bust cycles too.
Zashi made private payments easier and added cross-chain swaps. Around the late-2025 breakout, ECC reported roughly 4.4 million shielded ZEC and $40m of wallet swaps.
More money was using the privacy features. That supports growing demand, but shielded balances aren’t a count of people, and stored coins aren’t necessarily everyday payments.
Coinbase’s research also identified renewed privacy interest, lower issuance after the halving and a short squeeze followed by momentum buying. I wouldn’t attribute the whole rally to adoption.
What am I buying when I buy privacy?
For private money, users hold the coin itself: ZEC or XMR. For private applications, users might hold USDC while paying a protocol for privacy. As in my ZKsync analysis, a separate token benefits only if its economics connect that usage to demand or rewards.
Zcash’s advantage is its specialist engineering, wallets and existing users. Its code can be copied; attracting users to a new privacy network takes longer. But privacy on Solana could compete for those same users without asking them to hold ZEC.
Zcash needed Ironwood after an Orchard counterfeiting vulnerability this year. A long history doesn’t eliminate cryptographic risk.
Solana already has several approaches
Ordinary Solana transfers are public. Its Confidential Balances extension encrypts amounts and balances, but leaves wallet addresses visible. Other protocols aim to hide more.
| Project | What makes it different | Investment angle |
|---|---|---|
| Arcium | Multiple computers process encrypted data together, supporting private apps and finance | ARX: ~$49m cap, ~$240m FDV. Infrastructure exposure, with considerable supply still locked |
| Umbra | Private balances and payments on Solana; deposits and withdrawals remain visible | UMBRA: ~$6m cap, ~$12m FDV. Small and thinly traded; already more than doubled over the month |
| Privacy Cash | Shielded pools break the public link between deposits and withdrawals | Usage could grow without a separate investable token |
| Inco Lightning | Confidential computing tools for apps; Solana offering documented as devnet beta | Watch deployment and adoption before assigning investment value |
| MagicBlock | Private execution in hardware enclaves, with settlement on Solana | Hardware and operator assumptions matter |
| Solana Rings | Programmable privacy with configurable policies; currently beta | A default Ring keeps participants public; custom Rings can hide them |
| Private Channels | Institutions operate their own private execution environment | The institution controls access and data visibility |
| Ligero | ZK technology for private business payments and payroll | A business product; I haven’t verified a tradable native token |
Other names include ShadowWire, which hides transfer amounts using Bulletproofs, and Hush, a wallet combining privacy tools. Supporting a token doesn’t mean a tool’s revenue belongs to that token’s holders.
For rows without a valuation, I haven’t verified a tradable native token. There is no market cap to compare on that basis. A matching ticker on an exchange isn’t enough.
The wider token watchlist
These are different businesses and monetary bets, so I’d avoid buying them all as one privacy bet.
| Token | Market cap | USP and my investment view |
|---|---|---|
| ZEC | ~$19bn | Private money with optional shielded transfers. Established, but another 100x would imply around $1.9 trillion before further issuance |
| XMR | ~$11bn | Privacy by default. My benchmark for private money; exchange access remains a risk |
| NIGHT | ~$660m | Programmable privacy; holding NIGHT generates transaction resource DUST. NIGHT itself is public. Already up roughly 70% over the month |
| ZAMA | ~$180m | Computing on encrypted data. Broad application potential, but roughly $810m FDV makes the small circulating cap misleading on its own |
| RAIL | ~$150m | Private DeFi using existing assets. Fee revenue gives me something measurable; thin token liquidity and competition temper the case |
| ROSE | ~$60m | Confidential apps on Oasis. Its shift toward consumer products needs paying adoption and stronger token demand |
| AZTEC | ~$57m | Private smart contracts on an Ethereum rollup. Clear purpose, but roughly $200m FDV and application adoption still matter |
| NIL | ~$41m | Private storage and computation. Interesting infrastructure; I’d need recurring customer revenue to support a valuation |
| NYM | ~$23m | Hides network traffic metadata, complementing on-chain privacy. A concrete use case, but VPN adoption must produce meaningful token demand |
| ZANO | ~$80m | Confidential assets, extending privacy beyond one coin. I’d wait for gateway exploit recovery and independent audit |
| FIRO | ~$18m | Spark private payments. Thin trading and a recent cryptographic vulnerability keep it off my shortlist |
I’d also track DUSK (~$77m), focused on private financial infrastructure, and BDX (~$600m), with messaging, browsing and payments. Neither has enough verified customer economics in this review for me to call it cheap. SCRT (~$5m) is a community restructuring situation, including dilution, which is a different bet again.
Where I’d spend more research time
RAIL has the clearest revenue evidence on my shortlist. DefiLlama shows roughly $380,000 of protocol fees over the last month, with about $220,000 distributed to holders. Those are different figures, and revenue hasn’t been accelerating enough to make a 100x case credible yet.
NYM has the closest connection to the Zcash adoption story. Its network privacy tools are live in Zcash wallets, and VPN subscriptions fund NYM buybacks. I’d want verified subscription revenue, retention and buybacks compared with operator rewards; buying tokens doesn’t automatically retire them permanently.
ARX and AZTEC are the earlier infrastructure bets. ARX is collateral for compute operators, while customers pay computation fees in assets such as SOL. AZTEC funds network fees through Fee Juice. Neither gives a passive holder an automatic claim on every dollar of usage.
ARX and AZTEC were already up roughly 35% and 30% over the month. NYM remained down over the year despite a recent bounce. RAIL was roughly flat over the year and down over the month.
My speculative bull case is that easier wallets bring repeat paying users, and fees or monetary demand grow faster than token supply. My base case is useful products with modest token returns. The bear case is that competition, security failures or lost exchange access overwhelm adoption.
I’d rather miss the first part of a rally than buy a privacy token whose customers don’t need it.
