Introduction
In a week of extreme market turmoil that saw over $2.6 billion in leveraged positions wiped out, the privacy coin sector experienced a dramatic divergence. While giants Monero (XMR) and Zcash (ZEC) plummeted by nearly a third, the much smaller ZANO blockchain demonstrated remarkable resilience, declining just 1.4%. This stark performance gap, unfolding as the crypto Fear & Greed Index hit a deeply fearful 9, highlights a potential flight to stability within niche projects amid a broader market rout.
Key Points
- ZANO maintained relative price stability (‑1.4%) while major privacy coins Monero and Zcash fell over 28% during extreme market fear conditions.
- The crypto Fear & Greed Index hit 9 (extreme fear) with $2.13B in long position liquidations contributing to total market liquidations of $2.60B.
- ZANO's 2026 roadmap includes two hard forks introducing Gateway Addresses, full Proof-of-Stake consensus, and cross-chain privacy features.
A Tale of Two Market Caps
The data reveals a clear split. Over the seven days ending February 6, 2026, Monero fell 28.9% to trade at $311.40, a steep drop from its weekly high of $487.87. Zcash fared even worse, collapsing 33.4% to $221.61. In stark contrast, ZANO, ranked 224th by market capitalization, declined a mere 1.4% to $8.63, trading in a tight range between $8.60 and $9.50. This stability is particularly notable given ZANO’s modest $130.81 million market cap, dwarfed by Monero’s $5.74 billion and Zcash’s $3.66 billion.
No single catalyst was identified for ZANO’s outperformance, but its market structure offers clues. According to project data from August 2025, approximately 70% of ZANO’s 15.14 million circulating supply was staked, meaning those tokens are locked into the network and unavailable for immediate trading. This significantly reduces the liquid supply that can be sold during panic, potentially insulating the price from the extreme volatility that battered its larger, more liquid peers.
Extreme Fear Grips the Broader Market
The privacy coin sell-off occurred against a backdrop of pervasive market dread. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, a sentiment gauge, plunged to 9 on February 6, classified as ‘Extreme Fear.’ This was down from 16 just one week earlier, indicating a rapid deterioration in investor confidence. The total crypto market capitalization fell 5.70% in 24 hours to $2.34 trillion.
This fear manifested in massive liquidations, where over-leveraged positions are forcibly closed. According to Coinglass data, total market liquidations hit $2.60 billion in 24 hours. The vast majority—$2.13 billion—came from long positions betting on price increases, underscoring the severity of the downturn. Bitcoin accounted for $1.35 billion of these liquidations, Ethereum for $565.44 million, and Solana for $188.44 million, painting a picture of widespread deleveraging across major assets.
ZANO's Technical Foundation and Roadmap
Beyond market mechanics, ZANO’s underlying technology and development trajectory may contribute to holder confidence. Launched in 2019 by Andrey Sabelnikov, an original Monero core contributor and CryptoNote protocol developer, Zano employs a hybrid proof-of-work and proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. A key differentiator is its support for Confidential Assets, allowing other projects to create privacy-protected tokens on its chain—a feature Monero does not offer.
The project has also garnered public support from notable figures like early Bitcoin investor Roger Ver, who has highlighted Sabelnikov’s foundational role in privacy crypto. Practically, ZANO has seen adoption through integrations with Cake Wallet and Bitcoin.com Wallet, and a 2025 partnership with DFX enables spending ZANO at over 100 SPAR supermarkets in Switzerland.
Looking forward, ZANO’s recently published 2026 roadmap outlines major protocol upgrades focused on enhancing privacy, interoperability, and network resilience. Planned Hard Forks 6 and 7 will introduce Gateway Addresses, transition to a full Proof-of-Stake consensus, and enable native ZANO integration on the Confidential Layer Bridge for cross-chain transfers that preserve transaction confidentiality. These planned developments, alongside a reported Total Value Locked (TVL) exceeding $18 million as of December 2025, provide a narrative of forward momentum that may have encouraged holders to stay the course during the market storm.
📎 Related coverage from: cryptoslate.com
