Privacy coins and their position in the cycle
This page scores five privacy-focused cryptocurrencies, including Monero and Zcash, and explains why exchange delistings and anti-money-laundering rules weigh on this group more than market cycles alone.
Bull Market
6% confidence · UncertainSustained uptrend: greed rising, most coins well above their lows, momentum strong.
In past bull phases, traders have typically set price targets, raised stop-losses and planned their exits.
Cycle 4: BTC peaked at $126,080 on 6 Oct 2025, 534 days after the halving · Alts average 84% below their ATH
Five live readings drive this classification
- Fear & GreedGreed
- Avg ATH distance83% below ATH
- Avg RSIWeak
- Zone mix80% buy-side / 7% sell-side
- Bargain ScoreUndervalued
Phase from 5 live indicators across 54 coins. Halving-to-peak history: 371 / 526 / 548 / 534 days (mean 495). Estimates, not forecasts. Halving estimate from mempool.space block height.
The phase comes from five live readings: Fear & Greed, the average distance below ATH, average RSI, the mix of zones and the average Bargain Score. Each is scored from 0 (bull) to 100 (bear), then averaged. An average of 70 or more reads as Accumulation, 50 Early Recovery, 30 Bull Market, 15 Euphoria, and anything lower Distribution.
- Fear & Greed: Greed.
- Avg ATH distance: 83% below ATH.
- Avg RSI: Weak.
- Zone mix: 80% buy-side / 7% sell-side.
- Bargain Score: Undervalued.
Confidence is how far the average sits from the 50 midpoint, doubled. The countdowns use the block-height estimate for the next halving and the average halving-to-peak gap of past cycles. They are historical patterns, not forecasts. Next halving estimate plus the mean halving-to-peak gap over 4 cycles (371 / 526 / 548 / 534 days).
Read the full methodTop coins by market cap
BNB BNB
Uniswap UNI
Internet Computer ICP
Optimism OP
Filecoin FIL
Showing 5 coins · sorted by Zone score, high to low
- 1
Epic Cash
EPIC · PoW MiningPrice$0.676924h+0.92%Position10% of rangeMkt cap$13MVolume$94.3KRSI62Zone score51/100Mild discount, strength 3 of 5Zone score 40–59: Price is a little below its usual range for this point in its cycle. How zones workCycle targetsBase $7.73 (+1,042%)Price 90% below ATH · greed high · low liquidity · high riskEpic Cash is 90% below its all-time high while the market is greedy. The Bargain Score puts it at a meaningful discount.
Bargain Score 60/100 (Meaningful discount). Risk level High.
- 2
Zcash
ZEC · PrivacyPrice$1,24024h+8.28%Position39% of rangeMkt cap$21.1BVolume$934MRSI36Zone score50/100Mild discount, strength 3 of 5Zone score 40–59: Price is a little below its usual range for this point in its cycle. How zones workCycle targetsBase $3,671 (+196%)Price 61% below ATH · greed high · shorts crowdedZcash is 61% below its all-time high while the market is greedy. The Bargain Score puts it at a meaningful discount.
Bargain Score 61/100 (Meaningful discount). Risk level Low.
- 3
Oasis Network
ROSE · PrivacyPrice$0.00834824h+3.10%Position0.6% of rangeMkt cap$67.8MVolume$3.2MRSI43Zone score45/100Mild discount, strength 3 of 5Zone score 40–59: Price is a little below its usual range for this point in its cycle. How zones workCycle targetsBase $0.6869 (+8,129%)Price 99% below ATH · greed high · structural collapse riskOasis Network is 99% below its all-time high while the market is greedy. The Bargain Score puts it at a meaningful discount.
Bargain Score 60/100 (Meaningful discount). Risk level High.
- 4
Secret
SCRT · PrivacyPrice$0.00780224h−7.65%Position0.0% of rangeMkt cap$5.3MVolume$77.5KRSI43Zone score38/100Fair value, strength 2 of 5Zone score 20–39: Price is close to its usual range for this point in its cycle. How zones workCycle targetsBase $11.94 (+152,901%)Price 99.9% below ATH · greed high · structural collapse riskSecret is 99.9% below its all-time high while the market is greedy. The Bargain Score puts it interesting, but not yet at deep-discount levels.
Bargain Score 54/100 (Watch). Risk level High.
- 5
Monero
XMR · PrivacyPrice$550.4324h+5.25%Position69% of rangeMkt cap$10.4BVolume$109MRSI52Zone score22/100Fair value, strength 2 of 5Zone score 20–39: Price is close to its usual range for this point in its cycle. How zones workCycle targetsBase $917.39 (+66.7%)Price 31% below ATH · greed highMonero is 31% below its all-time high while the market is greedy. The Bargain Score puts it interesting, but not yet at deep-discount levels.
Bargain Score 48/100 (Watch). Risk level Low.
End of the list
5 of 54 coins shown. Search above to add another coin, or see which coins changed zone today.
Today’s zone changes
About privacy coins
Key takeaways
- Privacy coins hide some or all of who sent how much to whom, and Monero does it on every transaction.
- Delistings shrink access, and an EU rule is due to bar regulated crypto firms from handling these coins from July 2027.
- Zcash's recorded high comes from its launch week, so its distance below that high starts from an abnormal price.
Most blockchains are public, so anyone can follow which address sent how much to which other address, and privacy coins are the attempt to hide some or all of that. Monero hides the sender, the receiver and the amount on every transaction by default. Zcash makes privacy optional, with shielded transactions running alongside ordinary transparent ones, while Secret and Oasis keep data private inside smart contracts so that applications can work on information without exposing it. Epic Cash is a small mineable coin built on the MimbleWimble design.
What moves this group is partly the same market cycle as everything else and partly its own politics. Demand tends to rise when people worry about surveillance and financial censorship, and access shrinks when exchanges stop listing the coins: Binance delisted Monero in February 2024, and the EU's anti-money-laundering regulation, adopted that year, is due to bar regulated crypto firms from handling anonymity-enhancing coins from July 2027.
On the latest snapshot
Right now 3 of the 5 privacy coins are in a discount zone. The median distance below an all-time high is 90%, and Zcash leads on Bargain Score with 61 (snapshot 14 Oct, 02:00 BST).
You might expect that to have flattened Monero's price, but it set a new all-time high on 14 January 2026, and when we checked on 10 October 2026 it was 34% below that level, a much shallower fall than most of our list.
Zcash shows a different problem, one with the data. Its recorded high comes from its launch week in October 2016, when very thin trading produced prices in the thousands of dollars, so on the same day it showed as 61% below a high that was never a normal market price. The risks the model cannot see are the important ones here: losing access to regulated exchanges, which cuts liquidity, and the smaller coins becoming too thinly traded to price properly.
How the scores work
Every formula and data source behind the Bargain Score and the zones, checked against the code.
Read the methodology How the screener reads these coins
The two small names are where you can watch the liquidity gate work.
The two small names are where you can watch the liquidity gate work. On 10 October 2026 Secret had a market value of about $6 million and Epic Cash about $10 million, and Epic Cash traded only around $78,000 that day, under 1% of its value, which is the point at which the gate caps a blended Bargain Score at 60.
Secret, on about $92,000, was just over the line. A price that hardly anyone is trading at says less about value than one that changes hands heavily, so we think the cap is doing its job there.
FAQ
Questions about privacy coins
Are privacy coins legal in the UK?
Owning them is not illegal in the UK, and access is the bigger issue. UK-registered crypto firms have to meet anti-money-laundering rules, including the travel rule for transfers, and several exchanges have stopped offering privacy coins rather than deal with that. Rules differ between countries and are changing, so anyone interested should check the current position where they live. This page is not legal advice.
What is the difference between Monero and Zcash?
Monero makes every transaction private by default, using ring signatures to hide the sender, stealth addresses to hide the receiver and confidential transactions to hide the amount. Zcash uses zero-knowledge proofs and lets users choose between shielded and transparent addresses, and that optional design has made it easier for some exchanges to keep listing Zcash, while Monero's always-on privacy is what its supporters value most. Their price histories are quite different as a result, and so, often, are their Bargain Scores.
Why did Monero hit a new high after being delisted?
We can only point to what the data shows, which is that Monero's price set a record in January 2026, nearly two years after Binance removed it. Delistings make it harder to buy, but they do not remove demand from people who already value the coin, and some of that demand moves to other venues. For us it is a good example of a coin's distance from its high changing for reasons the model cannot see, in either direction.
Important information
Don't invest unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong.
Cryptoassets are largely unregulated in the UK, so you are unlikely to have access to the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme if something goes wrong. Educational information only, not financial advice. Read our disclaimer.
The crypto cycle in more depth
- Market mood Crypto Fear & Greed Index Today's reading and every daily value since 2018, with how fear and greed lined up with Bitcoin's cycles.
- Bitcoin cycle Bitcoin halving countdown The next halving estimated from block times, and every past halving beside the cycle peak that followed.
- Real returns Bitcoin real returns Bitcoin's highs and drawdowns restated after US and UK inflation and against money printing.
- Real returns Real returns for every asset Shares, gold and crypto measured against inflation in dollars and pounds, and against money printing.