XMR Reclaims Top Privacy Coin Spot Post Zcash Devs Exit

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

Monero has regained its position as the leading privacy coin after Zcash devs’ exit.
Zcash’s price fell significantly after the developers’ departure, while Monero rallied.
The shift marks a reversal of late-2025 trends, when Zcash briefly overtook Monero.

Zcash developers’ team resigned on January 8th citing a governance crisis that necessitated their departure. This led to a significant drop in the price of the coin ZEC, and Monero (XMR) reclaiming its status as the dominant privacy coin.

According to Coinmarketcap data today, Monero is currently the 14th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization while Zcash is the 17th largest. The coin first dropped to $389 following the team’s exit, but later saw a slight recovery and is now trading at $434.

A screenshot showing Monero and Zcash. Source: Coinmarketcap.com.

Zcash rallied to nearly $700 towards the end of last year, as privacy became a central theme in blockchain technology adoption. Prior to this time, it was the second-largest privacy coin after Monero which has been in the lead for years.

Monero Takes the Lead in Privacy Again

Monero was the largest privacy coin for many years, but lost that status to Zcash after the end of year rally for privacy coins that favored Zcash more than any other privacy coin, but Monero also started picking up steam. At the end of 2025, analysts referred to XMR as having the most bullish chart in crypto, which meant that it had a lot of rally potential.

While ZEC crashed due to the dev crisis in the team, XMR rallied to its 2026 high of $473 the same day, which explains the sudden rise of Monero above Zcash. The team claims that its exit to create a new startup is bullish for Zcash, as the project has been a non-profit. It also launched a new Zcash wallet just hours after the exit, which has stirred controversy in the crypto space.

Meanwhile, a crypto analyst has alleged that the developers’ exit was an easy way to extract liquidity from Zcash’s recent rally and channel it into a new project, and the Zcash wallet launch seems to confirm this.

The ideal recipe to extract liquidity in the recent pump to fuel the new hype on a new protocol.

— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) January 8, 2026

Will Zcash Reclaim the Top Spot?

After the quick rally, XMR is now bigger than Zcash, not only by market capitalization but also by unit price. XMR is now worth $460 while ZEC is worth $434.

Unless Zcash begins to benefit from the new startup as claimed and its price recovers, Monero may retain its current status as the top privacy coin which it had held until last year, if it continues to grow bigger in the coming months.