In 2025, the privacy crypto market went parabolic. The Zcash price surged to over $700, with some traders locking in gains exceeding 1000%. The Monero price also outperformed the broader market, while DUSK launched into a more bearish environment but still managed to build a respectable market capitalization of around $100 million.
In 2026, however, ZEC and XMR have suffered notable losses as profit-taking hit the charts. While the $DUSK price has attempted to recover from its earlier crash, neither project has managed to keep pace with GhostWareOS ($GHOST), which has returned over 400% in the past week.
GhostWareOS now appears to be an outlier within the privacy market. Its price action seems to be driven by a combination of speculative trading, the rollout of privacy tools tailored for the Solana ecosystem, and growing excitement around an upcoming announcement from the team.
GHOST: Solana-Privacy Solution Gains 400%
Even as the broader privacy market has struggled to find momentum in 2026, $GHOST has gained around 400%. At the start of the year, the $GHOST chart was trading largely flat, with a market capitalization just under $2 million. Since then, buying pressure has accelerated, pushing the market cap to roughly $8 million in a short period of time.
From a technical perspective, the recent breakout has established a potential support zone around the $7–8 million market cap range. Holding this area could be important for maintaining bullish structure, while the $10 million level now stands out as a clear resistance zone. A sustained move above that level would likely attract further attention from momentum traders.
Part of the surge was driven by a Lookonchain post highlighting capital rotation from the $PENGUIN memecoin into GHOST. The post showed that a large wallet redirected profits into GhostwareOS, reinforcing the view that traders are shifting from meme-driven trades into utility-focused projects.
Momentum was further supported by the announcement of the upcoming launch of GhostSwap. GhostSwap is designed to enable private, unlinkable swaps on Solana, expanding the GhostwareOS privacy stack beyond payments. This followed the successful rollout of GhostPay, which delivered private payment functionality.
More recently, whale wallets appear to be accumulating GHOST ahead of another teased announcement. The team hinted on X that a major update aimed at expanding the GhostwareOS community would be revealed within the next 24 hours.
DUSK Price Drops 25%
Dusk ($DUSK) is a slightly unusual privacy play. The project is not entirely focused on providing privacy solutions alone, but instead aims to enable the purchase of institutional-grade assets while allowing users to maintain privacy. This positions Dusk as a bridge between the real-world asset narrative and on-chain privacy.
Following its launch in late 2025, $DUSK experienced a sharp crash. Its market capitalization fell from around $12 million to as low as $1.9 million as early momentum faded and liquidity thinned.
Over the past few weeks, the $DUSK price recovered strongly, with its market capitalization at one point exceeding $100 million. However, a pullback over the past several days has resulted in a roughly 25% decline, leaving the market cap near $75 million.
$DUSK price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
XMR Price Pulls Back From 2026 High
The Monero price failed to keep up with Zcash in 2025. However, XMR has remained a dominant player in 2026. The XMR price reached a high of $788 earlier this month, with its market capitalization climbing above $14 billion. For context, in the first half of 2025, XMR was trading near $220.
Since hitting that high, the XMR price has pulled back to around $470. Although the decline has been painful, it has not broken through as many key support levels as Zcash, suggesting that profit-taking may be more measured.
Even after the pullback, XMR’s market capitalization sits just under $9 billion. At this size, potential returns are inherently more limited compared with smaller-cap projects such as GHOST, given the scale of capital required to drive significant price movement.
Monero price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
ZEC Price Continues To Struggle
The Zcash price action took most people by surprise in 2025. For several years, the ZEC price had traded largely flat around the $50 level. While developers continued building utility, regulatory pressure and a prolonged neutral trend kept broader market interest muted.
Unexpectedly, ZEC surged in late 2025. The first leg higher in October pushed the price toward $200, with momentum carrying through to a peak near $698, briefly placing Zcash among the most valuable altcoins in the market.
The recent pullback has seen Zcash shed close to 50% from that all-time high. This move appears largely driven by profit-taking, especially given the project’s peak valuation of roughly $11 billion, which limited further upside for late-cycle buyers.
Technical analysts now suggest the Zcash pullback could continue if capital keeps rotating toward smaller-cap projects with newer privacy technology stacks, such as $GHOST.
Zcash price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
Final Thoughts: GHOST Outperforms Privacy Coins
The second half of 2025 was dominated by legacy privacy coins such as Zcash and Monero. In 2026, however, profit-taking appears to be in full swing, creating demand for smaller-cap projects with greater upside potential, where $GHOST has emerged as a dominant player. The recent gains appear to be driven by the Lookonchain data and anticipation surrounding the launch of GhostSwap, reinforcing GhostwareOS’s position as an outperformer within the privacy sector.
