The share of privacy coin transactions rises to 11.4%. How niche tracks will become an important narrative in the crypto market by 2026

The privacy sector is undergoing a shift from the fringes to the mainstream. According to the latest news, in 2025, privacy coins outperformed Bitcoin and Ethereum overall, with their trading share increasing from 9.7% to 11.4%. The total market capitalization of the privacy sector has surpassed $24 billion. More importantly, this is not just market sentiment fluctuation but a structural change at the infrastructure level.

Data Speaks: The Real Performance of Privacy Coins

There are several key indicators worth noting regarding the performance of privacy coins in 2025:

What do these data points reflect? Privacy coins are not only competitive in price but also gaining more attention in practical use. The rise in trading share indicates that it’s not just capital flowing in, but genuine demand for usage is growing.

From Optional to Essential: Structural Changes at the Architecture Level

Currently, Monero and Zcash still dominate the privacy transaction flow, but more attention should be paid to changes at the ecosystem level.

Multiple infrastructure teams are beginning to reconstruct privacy capabilities as the default layer design of blockchains, rather than optional features. This is a significant signal shift, indicating that privacy is evolving from an auxiliary feature into a core component of the underlying architecture. The significance of this shift includes:

• Privacy is no longer a differentiating selling point for certain coins but a standard configuration of infrastructure
• It reflects a consensus recognition of privacy needs across the industry
• New projects may directly design privacy as a default option rather than an afterthought

Why Now? Analysis of Long-Term Driving Forces

This trend is described as “long-term planning rather than short-term rotation.” What are the driving factors behind it?

Against the backdrop of ongoing strengthening of global regulation and on-chain monitoring, the demand for on-chain anonymity and transaction privacy is rising. This is not market hype but a response to actual external environment changes. As on-chain data analysis tools become more mature and regulatory agencies’ tracking capabilities improve, the need for privacy protection becomes a realistic and persistent demand.

From my personal perspective, the mainstreaming of the privacy sector has two levels of significance: first, to meet actual privacy protection needs; second, to counteract the increasingly intensified on-chain surveillance. Both factors are unlikely to disappear in the short term, so the rising demand for privacy may be a long-term trend.

Summary

The privacy sector is moving from a niche area to an important narrative in the crypto market. This shift is supported not only by market data (rising trading share, market cap surpassing $24 billion) but also by structural changes at the infrastructure level (privacy becoming the default design). Against the backdrop of strengthened global regulation and deepened on-chain monitoring, the demand for privacy protection is long-term and genuine. Therefore, privacy coins and related tools are expected to remain important directions to watch in the 2026 crypto market.