Privacy coins are able to escape the crypto bear market

Amidst all the doom and gloom we’re currently seeing in the crypto market, there are still winners. The most obvious group in the crypto market in 2025 isn’t Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other major altcoins. Memecoins also failed to impress this year. So who did win? Well, privacy coins like ZCash and Monero had a fantastic 2025, likely due to the growing demand for anonymity.

Credit Default Swaps

Two things are back in full force in the second half of 2025: Wall Street investors’ interest in Credit Default Swaps (this time betting on AI tech companies that will collapse) and privacy coins.

Credit Default Swaps don’t bundle mortgages this time, but rather they offer you a handy ‘short’ of a group of tech companies. Major Wall Street investors are eager to profit if the AI ​​bubble bursts in 2026, so banks are offering products that will pay out if Oracle, Nvidia, and Meta, for example, experience a minor crash.

A second product that’s very popular with investors is privacy coins. These are digital currencies designed for anonymity.

Unlike most well-known cryptocurrencies, whose transactions are public and traceable, privacy coins hide important details such as the sender’s and recipient’s addresses, as well as the transaction amounts. So, if you’re a Russian billionaire or a North Korean hacker, you’ll be very familiar with coins like ZCoin and Monero.

2025 was a bumper year for the most well-known privacy coins. ZCash gained a whopping 600%, and Monero also gained 100%. Dash performed considerably less well, gaining around 12%, but as the name of that cryptocurrency is the same as Doordash stock, that’s not really surprising.

Privacy coins are definitely an investment strategy to keep an eye on in 2026.