BlockBeats news: On January 12, the crypto research institute Stacy Muur shared its insights, stating that market data indicates privacy-related crypto assets are moving from a niche segment to mainstream attention. In 2025, privacy coins as a whole outperformed Bitcoin and Ethereum, demonstrating stronger resilience during market volatility, while on-chain real usage continued to rise, with their share of transactions increasing from approximately 9.7% to 11.4%.
Currently, Monero and Zcash still dominate the market for private transactions, and the total market value of the privacy sector has exceeded $24 billion. At the same time, multiple infrastructure teams have begun to integrate privacy features into the default layer design of blockchains, rather than as optional functions, indicating that privacy is becoming an essential component of foundational architecture.
This trend appears more like a long-term strategy than a short-term fluctuation. Against the backdrop of increasingly stringent global regulations and on-chain monitoring, the demand for anonymity and transactional privacy on the blockchain is rising. Privacy coins and related tools are expected to become a significant narrative in the cryptocurrency market by 2026.