Zcash’s rally has become one of crypto’s most dramatic stories this year. The privacy-focused token ZEC has surged more than 1,200% year-to-date, vastly outperforming major coins — while Cardano (ADA) has retraced roughly 66% over the same period. The divergence was so sharp that ZEC briefly overtook ADA in market capitalization on May 10, making Zcash the 11th-largest crypto by market cap and prompting at least one market analyst to suggest a lasting “flip” could be possible.
Why investors are piling into Zcash
Analyst Alex Carchidi points to concentrated accumulation and rising on-chain privacy use as key drivers. Institutional and crypto-native players have been building positions: Multicoin Capital disclosed in early May that it started accumulating ZEC in February, and Cypherpunk Technologies recently added about 295,000 ZEC — roughly 1.7% of the circulating supply.
On the network side, privacy activity appears to be rising in step with price. About 30% of Zcash’s circulating supply is now held in “shielded” addresses, which use zero-knowledge cryptography to hide transaction details. That share has nearly quadrupled in two years, suggesting growing adoption of Zcash’s privacy features rather than purely speculative demand.
Cardano’s growth story falters
By contrast, Cardano continues to struggle to gain traction as a smart-contract platform. Carchidi describes ADA as stuck in an “awkward valley”: it’s targeting DeFi and app infrastructure but hasn’t built the ecosystem scale to compete with fast, high-throughput chains like Solana. Compared with Ethereum, Cardano may be cheaper in some respects, but it remains slightly slower and far smaller in developer and user activity.
The metrics back up that view. As of May 12, Cardano’s total value locked (TVL) was about $137 million, ranking it 26th among blockchains and down sharply from roughly $410 million a year earlier. That decline underscores weak DeFi traction and a lack of near-term catalysts to restore confidence.
What institutional investors want — and what might change
Carchidi says institutional capital favors narratives that survive scrutiny. He believes Zcash currently offers a clearer investment story — privacy demand plus signs of accumulation — whereas Cardano has been essentially a “wait for better times” pitch without a concrete roadmap to drive renewed adoption.
The clearest potential catalyst for ADA might be approval of a spot Cardano ETF, which Carchidi suggests could arrive in the second half of 2026. Even so, he is skeptical investors would buy ADA via an ETF without a stronger investment thesis for why to hold at current levels.
Bottom line from the analyst
Carchidi’s takeaway is straightforward: investors who lack a clear reason to hold Cardano may consider selling, while Zcash could be attractive for portfolios seeking privacy-coin exposure or a scarce store of value tied to growing on-chain privacy usage.
Market snapshot
At the time of writing, ZEC traded around $545 after gaining roughly 63% in two weeks, while ADA was near $0.27, up about 9% over the same period.
(Analysis and quotes attributed to market expert Alex Carchidi; data points and institutional disclosures as noted.)
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