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Zcash Overtakes Monero in Global Crypto Market Cap Rankings

Zcash’s surge, fueled by trading volume spikes, technical breakouts, and institutional interest, briefly pushed it past Monero, signaling shifting dynamics in the privacy coin sector.

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Fact Check
The evidence strongly supports the statement's truthfulness. Multiple independent news sources with medium to high authority (Yahoo Finance, TradingView, ForkLog) directly and explicitly report that Zcash's market capitalization surpassed Monero's. This consistency across several publications significantly strengthens the claim. The Yahoo Finance article, in particular, is a high-authority source that reports the event as a factual occurrence on a specific date. A social media post from a crypto industry participant, while having low authority, corroborates the reports from the news outlets. The primary data sources from Coinbase and Yahoo Finance for Zcash and Monero respectively provide the underlying data upon which these news reports are based, confirming that the claim is verifiable. There is no conflicting evidence among the relevant sources provided. The irrelevant sources concerning Bitcoin, future price predictions, and prediction markets have been correctly disregarded as they do not provide factual information about the past or current market capitalization comparison between Zcash and Monero.
Summary

Zcash’s market capitalization rose nearly 50% in seven days to $7.2 billion, surpassing Monero’s $6.3 billion for several hours on Friday and most of the weekend. The rally was driven by soaring trading volumes, a breakout from long-term resistance, and November's block-reward halving, alongside growing institutional acceptance and endorsement from notable analyst Arthur Hayes. Zcash’s optional-privacy model provides regulatory flexibility compared to Monero's fully private approach, which has led to exchange delistings. Additional support stems from Zashi CrossPay, positioning Zcash as a privacy layer for major networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Over the past three months, ZEC has surged nearly 1,000%, while XMR gained 11.5%.

Terms & Concepts
  • Zcash (ZEC): A privacy-focused cryptocurrency launched in 2016 that uses zero-knowledge proofs and offers optional privacy for transactions.
  • Optional Privacy Model: A blockchain transaction design allowing users to choose between public and private transfers, facilitating greater regulatory compliance flexibility.
  • Block-Reward Halving: An event in which the reward for mining new blocks is reduced by half, impacting cryptocurrency supply and potentially influencing its price.