📝 Editor's Note:

Coming to you from beautiful Buenos Aires, where the OurNetwork team has enjoyed Devconnect, DuneCon and more, welcome to this week’s issue of OurNetwork.

This one takes a look at privacy, a sector which pushed into the spotlight in part because of the rise of Zcash, a token launched in 2016, which has jumped by 15x in the past 90 days to become a top 20 crypto asset by market cap.

It's not just Zcash however. Privacy protocols' total value locked reached an all-time high of $1.33B on Nov. 11, according to DefiLlama. Leading that growth is Tornado Cash, a mixing protocol, Railgun, a privacy protocol, and Aztec, the Layer 2. Together those comprise over 99% of privacy protocols' TVL, again according to DefiLlama.

That the top protocols encompass such different use cases hints at a major theme in privacy: it's not as simple as hidden transactions. Privacy is about controlling identity and minimizing revealed data, features which enable regulated actors and institutions to operate with the precision their onchain operations can require.

In this issue, we're lucky to have Surf Query and Seoul Data Labs dig into the onchain latest of Zcash and Railgun, two leaders in the resurgent privacy space.

Let's dive in.

– ON Editorial Team

Zcash | Railgun

• Zcash is a privacy-first cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin but with anonymous transactions. That's possible with zk-SNARK tech, proving validity without revealing details. Now people can shield funds (using private z-addresses that hide sender, receiver, and amount, via encryption) and transfer with privacy, or choose transparency for audits. As of today, Zcash has processed over 2.4M transactions, with over 4.8M ZEC in shielded supply.

• Zcash just posted its strongest week of 2025: transfer transactions jumped 197% week-over-week to an all-time high of 565,000, while transparent transactions rose 179%. The transfer-transparent ratio held at ~3.1×, signaling not just more users, but deeper, higher-velocity economic activity across the network.

• NEAR Intents helps abstract and shield ZEC transactions—removing fees, ZK proofs, and pool complexity—while solvers settle privately on Zcash. NEAR handles UX; Zcash handles privacy. Since September, ZEC ranks third among tokens in terms of NEAR Intent volume with $587M (13%), showing rising demand.

• Railgun is a privacy protocol that enables anonymous transactions via zero-knowledge proofs. Users first "shield" assets by depositing into Railgun's smart contracts. Within the protocol, transaction details such as sender, recipient, and amount are fully obscured from public view. To exit, users "unshield" funds to a public address. Since its launch, Railgun has processed over $4.2B in shielded transaction volume across roughly 350,000 private transactions.

• Despite fluctuations driven by broader market trends, Railgun’s TVL currently stands at approximately $100M, reflecting a 62% increase year-over-year. The protocol has maintained an average TVL of around $90M throughout 2025 with Ethereum dominating its ecosystem by accounting for 95% of the total TVL.

• Currently, WETH and USDT account for 55% and 20% of Railgun’s TVL. As privacy protocols gain traction, it will be interesting to track shifts in Railgun’s token and chain distribution. Yet, the question is whether privacy protocols like Railgun will sustain long-term growth or remain niche solutions.