Privacy Coins Monero, Dash and Dusk Defy Crypto Market Slump

Privacy-focused cryptocurrencies including Monero and Dash have climbed despite a broader crypto market drop that liquidated nearly $1 billion in positions.

Over the past 24 hours, while Bitcoin dropped 2.3% and most altcoins are down 3% to 10%,  Dash and Monero are up 1.9% and 8.3% respectively, while the privacy coin category is up 4% on the day and 13.1% on the week, according to CoinGecko data. Dash is trading at $81.61, up 119% over the past week. Monero, which hit a new all-time high last Thursday, is trading around $644. Privacy coin DUSK, meanwhile, surged by over 118% in the past day and 354% in the past week.

The recent uptick in privacy tokens “reflects a combination of short-term catalysts and a deeper shift in investor narrative,” Rachel Lin, Co-founder & CEO of SynFutures, told Decrypt. She explained that the rally was amplified after on-chain investigator ZachXBT flagged large amounts of stolen Bitcoin and Litecoin being converted into Monero, “which pushed volumes higher in a relatively thin market and helped drive prices to new highs.”

Privacy repositioning

Beyond the short-term triggers, Lin noted a “broader re-rating happening across the privacy sector,” driven mostly by “intensifying global regulations, heightening on-chain surveillance and compliance requirements. Low correlation to Bitcoin is another selling point for investors, she said.

“Privacy coins tend to move counter-cyclically during periods of heightened uncertainty,” Shivam Thakral, CEO of Indian crypto exchange BuyUCoin, told Decrypt, highlighting the ongoing threat of U.S.-EU trade war reemergence. “The recent gains reflect defensive positioning, not speculative excess.”

“Crypto institutionalization has made public blockchains more traceable, not less, creating demand for opt-in privacy,” Thakral said, highlighting this as the key reason why the privacy narrative has remained strong since 2025.

Additionally, the ongoing macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions, along with a push toward increased regulatory and capital controls and data surveillance, have pushed privacy from a niche ideology to a legitimate risk-management feature, the analyst added.

Though Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has long been an advocate of privacy, his recent call for privacy and decentralization has added to the narrative’s credibility.

Users of prediction market Myriad, owned by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, remained optimistic, assigning an 83.7% chance to Bitcoin’s next move taking it to $100,000 rather than $69,000. The probability has largely remained unaffected even after today’s liquidation event.

The exception to the privacy coin surge was Zcash, down 6.8% on the day and 6% on the week after turmoil at the Electric Coin Company earlier this month. Myriad users remain split on its outlook, placing a 51% chance on its next move taking it to $550 rather than $250.