Zcash’s surge steals the spotlight as Cardano lags
Zcash (ZEC), the market’s best-known privacy coin, has ripped higher this year — up more than 1,200% year-to-date — leaving most major cryptocurrencies in the dust. Cardano (ADA), by contrast, has moved in the opposite direction, down roughly 66% over the same period. The gap grew so wide that ZEC briefly overtook ADA in market capitalization on May 10, pushing Zcash into the No. 11 spot by market cap — a milestone that has prompted at least one analyst to speculate a permanent flip could be possible.
Why investors are piling into Zcash
Market strategist Alex Carchidi points to concentrated accumulation and rising on-chain privacy usage as the core drivers behind ZEC’s rally. Institutional and institutional-ish accumulation has been visible: Multicoin Capital disclosed in early May that it has been building a sizable Zcash position since February, and Cypherpunk Technologies added roughly 295,000 ZEC — about 1.7% of circulating supply.
At the same time, use of Zcash’s privacy layer appears to be increasing. About 30% of the circulating supply is now held in shielded addresses, which use specialized cryptography to obscure transaction details. That share has nearly quadrupled over the past two years, a trend Carchidi says suggests genuine adoption of the protocol’s privacy features alongside price momentum.
Cardano’s uphill battle
Cardano’s story looks very different. Built as a smart-contract platform aimed at DeFi and decentralized apps, ADA has struggled to translate its roadmap into sustained traction. As of May 12, Cardano’s total value locked (TVL) was about $137 million, ranking 26th among blockchains and down sharply from roughly $410 million a year earlier.
Carchidi describes Cardano as stuck in an “awkward valley”: not fast or cheap enough to compete with ultra-high-throughput chains like Solana, yet not large or fast enough to match Ethereum’s ecosystem scale. That gap, he argues, has weakened the conviction narrative that typically attracts institutional capital. Where Zcash has a clear, scrutinizable use case — privacy and scarce supply exposure — Cardano’s near-term catalysts are less obvious.
What could change for ADA?
Carchidi notes one potential upside for Cardano: approval of a spot ADA exchange-traded fund (ETF), which he views as a possible catalyst in the second half of 2026. Even so, he cautions that an ETF alone may not be enough to draw lasting investor interest unless there’s a convincing investment thesis behind purchases at current price levels.
Bottom line from the analyst
Given the uncertainty around Cardano’s path to renewed growth, Carchidi suggests some investors might consider trimming ADA exposure. By contrast, Zcash may be an attractive allocation for portfolios seeking privacy-coin exposure or a scarce store-of-value play, especially while accumulation and on-chain privacy usage are rising.
Prices at a glance
At the time of writing, ZEC was trading around $545 after a 63% gain in the past two weeks, while ADA changed hands near $0.27, up about 9% over the same period.
(Chart: TradingView; featured image generated with OpenArt.)
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