Privacy focused cryptos move back into the foreground in 2026

Privacy-focused cryptocurrencies are moving back into the spotlight, and the recent strength in Monero ( $XMR ) and Dash ( $DASH ) looks driven by fundamentals rather than short-term speculation.

 

As regulatory pressure increases and blockchain activity becomes easier to trace, the market is once again assigning value to genuine financial privacy. In this environment, privacy coins naturally regain relevance.

Monero continues to stand apart because privacy is built in by default, not offered as an optional feature. Every transaction conceals the sender, receiver, and amount, a design choice that has kept XMR resilient across multiple market cycles. This is also why Monero often leads rallies when the privacy narrative returns.

If you want to buy/sell/trade monero XMR anonymously there is only one outfit making it possible: DawnSwap – a DEX and p2p with escrow (multisig arbitration)

Historically, during periods of tighter regulation or growing surveillance concerns, privacy-focused assets have outperformed the broader market. The current cycle appears to be following that same pattern.

 

From a price perspective, Monero’s entry into strong momentum zones suggests room for further expansion. In previous cycles, once $XMR broke through key resistance levels, it often extended significantly higher before consolidating. If demand remains strong, long-term psychological targets in the $800$1,000 range are not unrealistic.

 

Dash, while structurally different, is also benefiting from capital rotation into undervalued legacy projects. Its upside may be more measured, but a breakout toward former macro resistance levels is possible if the privacy narrative continues to gain traction.

 

Overall, this move reflects a broader market realization: privacy remains a core pillar of crypto’s long-term value proposition, not a temporary trend.

DarkFi in a nutshell

What is DarkFi?

DarkFi is an ecosystem of anonymous applications. It consists of a layer 1 blockchain, a communications service, and a task management service. The communications service darkirc is an anonymous IRC server. tau is a task management app that gives users the ability to collaborate with others including assigning and syncing tasks across different workspaces. DarkFi is built with strong privacy, censorship-resistance, and free (as in freedom) and open source software philosophy as its guiding design principles.

How is the DarkFi blockchain different than other privacy claiming projects?

Note: Each network’s design choices and architecture widely varies. This is only to point out general design differences between DarkFi and others. DarkFi is a proof-of-work layer 1 blockchain and ecosystem. DarkFi ZK circuits are programmed in ZKAS (ZK Assembly) and then executed in the zkVM to generate proofs on-chain. DarkFi uses Halo 2 for its proving system, which requires no trusted setup. Since DarkFi is an L1, all transactions are executed directly by the network. Bitcoin is a transparent blockchain where people execute coin transfers between participants. Similarly, Monero is also a blockchain where people transfer coins between participants, but they do can do it in a private manner. Ethereum is a transparent blockchain, where people can execute custom smart contracts, as well as transfer coins. DarkFi aims to achieve a similar concept, but instead of transparency, everything is built in a privacy first manner. Let’s look at a few other similar projects within the ecosystem. Aztec Network is an Ethereum layer 2 zk-rollup, and uses their own domain specific language, Noir. Aztec uses PLONK as its proving system, which requires a trusted setup. Transactions on Aztec are added to the rollup block by network sequencers to settle on the Ethereum L1. Aleo is a proof-of-stake layer 1 blockchain that focuses on building ZK dApps. Aleo required a trusted setup for its foundational zk-proofs. Aleo uses their domain specific language, Leo. Transactions are submitted to the Aleo network via snarkOS. Namada is a proof-of-stake layer 1 blockchain that aims to build an interchain platform for shielded transfers of arbitrary assets. Namada’s natively built with inter-operability for IBC-chains. There is the ability to shield and unshield transactions. Namada used a trusted setup to generate the random parameters for the MASP circuit (which is an extension of the sapling circuit). Transactions propagate directly to the network and verification is done by “accounts” on-chain.

What type of consensus does DarkFi use?

DarkFi is a proof-of-work layer 1 blockchain, using RandomX. RandomX is optimized for general-purpose CPUs, and is also used by Monero. You can find more information about the DarkFi consensus process here.

How can I chat with DarkFi devs?

Join DarkIRC, our peer-to-peer anonymous implementation of an IRC server. There are weekly #dev meetings on Mondays.

How can I contribute to the project or build something on top of DarkFi?

You can visit here and ask any questions related to development in the #dev darkirc channel. You can also familiarize yourself with our docs by starting here.

Where should I go if I’m having network connectivity issues with DarkFi?

If you are having trouble connecting DarkFi applications, please refer to network troubleshooting.

I tried to run darkfid and had issues connecting to the network?

There is no live testnet for the current codebase.

How can I run my DarkFi nodes over Tor?

You can setup a Tor enabled node here.