Zcash’s privacy-focused protocol sparks changes in the market while lawmakers discuss regulations on data privacy.

Zcash (ZEC) is approaching a crucial turning point as Electric Coin Co. (ECC), the organization behind the project, reveals its Q4 2025 development plan during a period of significant price growth. The cryptocurrency has soared by more than 400% over the past month, reaching close to $420 in late October 2025 and, for the first time, overtaking Monero (XMR) in market value, according to

. This rally is fueled by several factors: increased adoption of Zcash’s privacy-focused Orchard protocol, growing institutional participation, and a general shift in the crypto market toward privacy-centric assets, .

The ECC roadmap centers on improving privacy and user experience for Zashi wallet holders. Major plans include adding ephemeral addresses for each swap through the multichain NEAR Intents protocol, automatically creating new transparent addresses to make transactions harder to trace, and enabling Pay-to-Script-Hash (P2SH) multisig wallets on Keystone hardware devices, as reported by The Block. These enhancements are designed to reduce the risk of address reuse—a key privacy concern—and to make wallet syncing easier for hardware users, according to

. ECC also intends to safeguard Zcash’s developer funds with a P2SH multisig structure, demonstrating a broader focus on transparency and security, as highlighted by The Block.

The timing of this roadmap coincides with a rise in Zcash’s shielded supply, which has now surpassed 4.1 million

on the Orchard protocol, the network’s most recent privacy upgrade, according to The Block. Transactions protected by zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs), which hide sender, recipient, and transaction amounts, now make up 27.5% of the total supply—a trend emphasized by Bitget. This growth is supported by recent technical improvements, such as Zashi’s decentralized off-ramp for shielded ZEC and on-chain swap features, as detailed by Cryptodnes. Analysts link Zcash’s price jump to its increasing role as a censorship-resistant asset, with institutional investors like Grayscale allocating $85 million to its ZEC fund, as Bitget reports.

Technical analysis indicates that ZEC could challenge the $500 mark if it breaks through the $380–$400 resistance range, though significant volatility and regulatory uncertainty persist,

. The token’s 4-hour MACD crossover and its position above important moving averages (such as the 50-day EMA at $308) point to a positive short-term trend, . Conversely, a decline below the $320–$330 level could lead to a pullback toward $280–$300, as crypto.news also cautions.

Zcash’s recent gains are part of a broader shift in the cryptocurrency landscape. Privacy coins are becoming more popular as regulators discuss tighter data regulations and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) progress, highlighting a growing preference for assets that offer greater anonymity, as explored by crypto.news. Despite these advances,

still faces competition from coins like Monero, which enforces default privacy and remains a leader in use cases that demand strong anonymity, such as darknet transactions, as Bitget points out. ECC’s plan to make shielded transactions standard in compatible wallets through the Halo Arc upgrade is intended to close this gap, according to Bitget.

The company’s proactive approach with regulators—including the use of "viewing keys" for compliance—shows an effort to position Zcash as a privacy solution that can meet institutional standards, as Bitget has reported. At the same time, expanding cross-chain functionality and supporting light clients could further establish Zcash’s place in the Web3 privacy sector, as Bitget suggests.

As Zcash moves through this period of change, its success will depend on how well it can advance privacy features while adapting to regulatory demands. With ECC’s roadmap focusing on both usability and security, the project is well-positioned to strengthen its role as a top privacy protocol, even as it faces ongoing economic and competitive challenges.