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The privacy trade has been a rare bright spot over the past several months of crypto market stagnation. The principal focus here has been trading action for the native tokens of Zcash (ZEC) and Monero (XMR).
ZEC's epic September run took the privacy coin from the doldrums to Valhalla, reaching a nine-year high in November, 28x above its 1y low. While Zcash stole the headlines, Monero's XMR was grinding higher – albeit from a much higher starting FDV. Two weeks ago, everything was turned on its head when the Zcash core dev team at The Electric Coin Company (ECC) announced they were leaving Zcash over a governance kerfuffle — ZEC tanked, and XMR found new room to retake command of the privacy trade.
While Monero has been the larger asset by market cap for most of its life, the ECC governance drama awarded fresh oxygen to the XMR camp's long-standing arguments — that it's the "one true privacy coin," fully private rather than optionally private. That debate is getting renewed attention now – even as both coins endure tough drawdowns alongside the broader altcoin market.
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