Bitcoin and Ethereum are up — but these privacy coins have surged even harder

Bitcoin and Ethereum made gains this week following US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a ceasefire with Iran. The two biggest cryptocurrencies are up 8% and 9%, respectively, over a seven day period.

But the biggest winners this week are Zcash and Dash, having shot up by double digits, according to CoinGecko data. Zcash was trading for $371 on Saturday morning in New York — a 49% weekly rise — and Dash had shot up by nearly 53%. Dash, a smaller privacy coin, was priced at nearly $46. Other privacy coins — including Monero — also made impressive gains: the original privacy cryptocurrency had risen by 7% over the past seven days.

The rise in privacy coins comes as top crypto entrepreneurs again pump the category: crypto entrepreneur Arthur Hayes this week spoke on Bitcoin podcaster Anthony Pompliano’s show where he again pumped Zcash. And Changpeng Zhao, founder and ex-CEO of Binance, spoke about the dangers of public blockchains.

Privacy coins got a boost last year after AngelList founder Naval Ravikant wrote on X that while “Bitcoin is insurance against fiat,” Zcash is “insurance against Bitcoin” — making note of privacy concerns around the biggest public blockchain. Since then, crypto bigwigs have pumped privacy projects and Winklevoss Capital, the venture capital fund owned by billionaire twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, even backed a Zcash treasury company.

Foundry Digital, the world’s leading Bitcoin mining pool operator, in March announced it was debuting a mining pool for Zcash.

Crypto market movers: • Bitcoin was trading for $72,727 per coin on Saturday, up more than 8% over the past week. • Ethereum’s price hit $2,244, a 9% seven-day jump.