Monero and Zcash Diverge in Double-Digit Weekly Swing as Privacy Coins Rotate

Privacy coin Monero is up over 23% in the past week amid a quiet Thanksgiving crypto market landscape, while Zcash has shed roughly 25% in the same timeframe.

Both privacy coins have been volatile, with Monero currently trading at $406 while Zcash trades at around $480, according to CoinGecko data.

What’s driving this dynamic?

The privacy coin narrative remains a dominant factor shaping the performance of Zcash, Monero, Dash, and other related tokens. For the most part, these altcoins have remained unaffected by macro uncertainty.

The current dynamic, where Zcash is down double-digits on the week while Monero is up the same amount, can be chalked up to capital rotation within the privacy sector.

“The privacy meta has been gaining popularity, and both Monero and Zcash have benefited from it,” Quinten van Welzen, head of strategy & communications at Zano, told Decrypt. “Short-term moves like Monero being up while Zcash is down mostly reflect positioning, leverage, and timing rather than a reversal in the underlying demand for privacy.”

However, not all privacy coins are built the same.

The privacy coin category is down 3.8% over 24 hours and nearly 40% over the past week. From a market cap perspective, Monero is the only top performer in this sector, showing 4.1% gains on the day while Zcash and Dash are both down 4.4% and 7.3%.

A closer look at perpetual data shows that Monero’s recent move is driven mostly by futures markets. The aggregate spot bid-ask delta at 10% depth shows sustained sell pressure, while the perpetual bid-ask delta at the same depth has remained positive,

This can be corroborated by looking at the spot and perpetual cumulative volume deltas, which are the differences between the total bid and ask volumes. While spot CVD remained steady, futures CVD was on an uptrend, according to CoinGlass data.

Coupled with rising open interest, which is the total open positions, it confirms that the move was led by speculation from futures traders and not via spot buying.

Typically, a rally led by perepetuals is often considered weak, especially if there’s no follow-through from spot buyers. Hence, the recent Monero uptrend could come undone if investors unwind their positions. This will allow profits to rotate into Zcash, Dash, or other crowd-favorite privacy coins.