Weekly Recap: Zcash Leads Privacy Coin Rally

Happy weekend Defiers!

Crypto markets had another rough week, with BTC briefly dipping under $100,000 on Friday before rebounding. ETH and SOL are trading at around $3,400 and $160, respectively

Privacy-focused coins bucked the bearish trend, however, led by Zcash and DASH.

Yield optimizer Stream Finance imploded this week after disclosing heavy losses, sparking contagion across numerous DeFi lending protocols. Meanwhile, veteran DEX Balancer was exploited for over $100 million.

Meanwhile, MegaETH ICO participants had mixed reactions after the highly anticipated Ethereum L2 revealed token allocations.

Finally, sports betting and politics are fueling a surge in prediction market volume.

Enjoy!

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Top stories this week

Privacy Coins Extend Rally as Zcash Soars Above $700

Privacy-focused cryptocurrencies are suddenly all the rage as traders rotate into assets that offer on-chain confidentiality. The “Privacy” category on Coingecko currently boasts a market capitalization of $29.9 billion, up more than 38% on the week.

The growth is being led specifically by strong gains in Zcash (ZEC), which is up more than 1,700% over the past three months.

How Stream Finance’s Collapse Exposed DeFi’s Looping Yield Bubble

Stream Finance, a yield-optimization focused DeFi project, told users on Nov. 4 that an “external fund manager” had lost about $93 million in assets tied to the project.

Withdrawals from the platform were frozen, and a dense web of interconnected yield vaults began to unwind, raising questions about how much of DeFi’s apparent growth was built on leveraged yield loops.

Bitcoin Hovers Around $101,000 as Stock Selloff Deepens

Crypto markets dipped again on Friday, with Bitcoin briefly slipping under $100,000 and top altcoins retreating.

MegaETH ICO Allocations Leave Community Split

Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain MegaETH unveiled token allocations to its initial coin offering (ICO) participants, and while most investors expected small allocations, some were left disappointed.

Sports Betting Pushes Kalshi and Polymarket Volumes to All-Time Highs

October marked the prediction market sector’s best month yet, with leading platforms Kalshi and Polymarket processing a cumulative $7.4 billion in volume.

While election markets are still generating hundreds of millions in volume, other niches, such as sports betting, are boosting volume metrics further.

On Thursday, Google Finance also announced that it will soon integrate prediction market data.

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