Monero (XMR) jumped 11% to $396.75 after a mysterious $23 million on-chain buy, while Zcash (ZEC) slipped more than 6% to $520.05 as its multi-month rally cooled.
Key Points:
- Monero rose 11% to $396.75 following an unexplained $23 million purchase routed through an over-the-counter venue.
- Zcash fell more than 6% as traders booked profits on a multi-month surge.
- Capital looks to be rotating from Zcash's institutional story back toward Monero's default-privacy model.
Monero Climbs on $23M Buy
The rally traced back to a single wallet that pulled $29.3 million in USDC (USDC) from Coinbase, swapped portions into DAI (DAI), then funneled about $23 million into Monero through the Wagyu over-the-counter venue.
The funds hopped across several wallets over roughly a day.
On-chain analyst MLM flagged the sequence in a post, estimating the wave of buying lifted XMR nearly 15% within hours.
No public hack or theft has been confirmed as the source of the money, leaving the buyer's intent unclear. Talk of compromised wallets stays unverified, and the episode echoes earlier opaque purchases that briefly drove the coin higher.
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Zcash and Monero Designs Diverge
Monero applies privacy to every transaction by default through its RingCT signatures and stealth addresses, while Zcash leans on optional zk-SNARK proofs that shield activity only when users turn the feature on.
Critics use that gap to question each Zcash rally whenever the sector reprices. The divergence has reopened a long-running debate over which coin offers the stronger product, with money drifting toward the asset that hides every move by design rather than by choice.
Zcash Rally Cools Near $500
Zcash tested support near $520 after touching highs above $640 earlier in May, a level it last visited back in 2017 during the previous cycle. The token still trades up almost 57% over the past 30 days and more than 900% across the year.
That climb followed January's SEC decision to close its Zcash Foundation probe without action, a May disclosure by Multicoin Capital, and Grayscale's filing to convert its Zcash trust into a spot ETF.
Roughly 30% of all ZEC supply now sits in shielded pools, tightening the float as the pullback drags the price toward its 200-day moving average near $500. Monero's market value stands near $7.43 billion against Zcash's $8.67 billion, ranking the pair 16th and 18th. The gap was forged over a year when privacy tokens broadly outran the majors and reset the sector.
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