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Zcash, or as it better known, ZEC, just surpassed meme coin Shiba Inu (SHIB) and another privacy project, Monero (XMR), in market capitalization, with its total figure increasing to $6.22 billion, or about $382 per coin, after jumping 14.8% in 24 hours.
This crypto rankings shake-up puts ZEC in 21st place globally, just below Litecoin's $7.29 billion market cap with a $95 price tag per LTC. Basically, another strong day for Zcash could flip the rankings again, pulling ZEC into the top 20 — probably for the first time ever.
Of course, the rally did not happen in isolation. Most of this insane 800% run in a month can be attributed to such figures as Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz and Naval Ravikant, who have renewed interest in a privacy coin that many had written off as a "dino" coin.
Going further with his Zcash shill, Mumtaz just today confirmed that ZEC light-client integration will follow the rollout of SIMD-0388. This system upgrade will enable BLS12-381 elliptic-curve syscalls.
Solana + Zcash = ?
To put it simply, once this update is live, developers can build a "light client" — a lightweight connector that lets Solana read and verify Zcash data without running a full Zcash node. This means Solana apps could check Zcash transactions directly, opening a path for cross-chain privacy tools or swaps between Solana and Zcash.
Interestingly, Solana Labs cofounder Anatoly Yakovenko even publicly congratulated the overtaking.
Inside the Zcash community, the milestone of surpassing SHIB and XMR was received as a long-awaited victory. Sean Bowe, one of the project’s early engineers, called it "years in the making."
Traders added fuel to the fire, pointing out that ZEC’s exchange float has thinned considerably since the middle of the year, leaving prices hypersensitive to new demand.
Whether this is a short-term shift or the beginning of a permanent change, Zcash has made a comeback. Monero now trails by less than $200 million, and Litecoin sits barely a billion ahead.
If the current momentum continues through the next trading cycle, the next reshuffle in the top 20 may be led by a privacy coin.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov
U.Today Editorial Team