ZEC, XMR, or Another Competitor? (3 AIs Weigh In)
“ZEC is my pick to finish with the largest market cap among privacy coins, but not necessarily the best investment from today’s price,” ChatGPT stated.
ZEC and XMR are among the market’s top performers over the past 30 days, both experiencing double-digit price increases.
The former remains the largest in the privacy coin sector, so we wanted to check whether it will keep its throne by the end of 2026 or be replaced by some of its competitors. Here’s what three widely used AI-powered chatbots said on the matter.
ZEC Has a Solid Chance
As of this writing, Zcash has a market capitalization of more than $14 billion, making it the 10th-biggest cryptocurrency, and ChatGPT expects the token to finish the year as number one in its niche for various reasons.
First, it noted that ZEC has better exchange accessibility, stating that it is available on major platforms like Binance and Coinbase. In contrast, its biggest competitor, XMR, was removed from the biggest crypto exchange in 2024 and has never been listed on Coinbase.
“This gives ZEC deeper liquidity and easier access for speculative and institutional capital,” the chatbot said.
Another positive development is the recent launch of the first Zcash ETF. The product is issued by Grayscale and represents a conversion from the existing Trust to an exchange-traded fund.
The financial product saw the light of day on August 25, and the social buzz prior to the launch drove a rally to a historic peak above $870. In the following days, ZEC experienced heightened volatility, briefly surpassing that record after reaching nearly $890 before retracing to the current $847 (per CoinGecko).
It is important to note that ChatGPT also praised XMR as a “strong privacy product,” but gave it a 33% chance of topping the ranking by the end of 2026. ZEC, in turn, has a 65% likelihood of keeping its first spot.
You may also like:
Perplexity also ranked Zcash’s token as the leading candidate on this front, giving particular attention to XMR:
“Monero will almost certainly remain the go-to for maximal privacy, but it’s unlikely to outperform ZEC on price and access by year-end under the current regulatory regime.”
More in Favor
Google’s Gemini agreed with the theories presented by the aforementioned chatbots. It claimed that the existence of a ZEC ETF could capture Wall Street liquidity, making it really difficult for XMR to keep pace. Additionally, it noted that the current market cap gap between the two coins is nearly $5 billion.
“For Monero to overtake Zcash by the end of 2026, it would need a massive surge to overcome major hurdles like centralized exchange delistings, slower P2P liquidity, and ZEC’s strong lead from institutional ETF capital. With only a few months remaining, XMR would have to drastically outpace ZEC’s growth – an unlikely scenario barring an unexpected regulatory shift,” Gemini concluded.