The short answer
Monero is private by default. Every transaction hides the sender, the receiver and the amount. The Monero FAQ says there is no way to send a transparent transaction by accident.
Zcash is private by choice. It has transparent addresses that work like Bitcoin addresses. Their amounts and balances are public. It also has shielded addresses. A payment between two shielded addresses hides the sender, the receiver and the amount. Your privacy depends on which addresses you and the other side use.
Neither coin makes you invisible. Both record every transaction on a public chain, and both can leak details at the edges. The sections below explain where.
Zcash vs Monero at a glance
| Monero (XMR) | Zcash (ZEC) | |
|---|---|---|
| Privacy | On for every transaction | Optional. Shielded addresses are private. Transparent addresses are public. |
| How it hides payments | Ring signatures, stealth addresses and RingCT | Zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs) inside shielded pools |
| Private or shielded share | Every transaction | 4,894,909 ZEC in shielded pools out of about 16.93 million in circulation on 17 September 2026 (just under 29%) |
| Supply model | No maximum supply. Tail emission of 0.6 XMR per block since June 2022. | Capped at 21 million ZEC. The block reward halves about every four years. |
| Block time | About 2 minutes | About 75 seconds |
| Address types | Standard (starts with 4, 95 characters), subaddress (starts with 8, 95 characters), integrated (106 characters) | Transparent (t1, t3), Sapling shielded (zs), unified (u), TEX (tex) |
| Fee depends on | Data size of the transaction and network congestion | Number of inputs and outputs (ZIP 317) |
| Selective disclosure | A private view key shows incoming payments | Viewing keys for shielded addresses, including unified viewing keys |
| Mining | Proof of work, RandomX | Proof of work, Equihash |
| Launched | April 2014 | October 2016 |
The shielded share is a dated reading from the official Zcash network page. It changes with every block. The other rows describe how each network works.
How Monero hides payments
Monero uses three tools on every transaction.
- Ring signatures hide the sender. Each input is signed as one of 16 possible outputs: your real one and 15 decoys taken from the chain.
- Stealth addresses hide the receiver. The sender’s wallet creates a new one-time address for each payment.
- RingCT hides the amount. It has been required for all transactions since September 2017.
Every transaction follows the same rules, so Monero has no public side to fall back to. You and the person you pay do not need to agree on any setting.
The ring is also a limit. Each input hides among 16 outputs, not among all outputs on the chain. The Monero project is working on Full-Chain Membership Proofs, known as FCMP++. Its official blog describes this as a replacement for rings, where the spent output could be any output on the chain. A project post from May 2026 said no fork date was set yet.
To get XMR, you can swap Bitcoin to Monero with no account. Our Monero coin page covers address types, syncing and the 10-block lock in more detail.
How Zcash hides payments
Zcash uses zero-knowledge proofs. A shielded transaction proves that it is valid without showing who paid whom or how much. When both sides use shielded addresses, the sender, the receiver and the amount stay encrypted.
The catch is that Zcash runs public and private payments on one chain. The Zcash docs describe four kinds of transaction:
- Transparent to transparent works like Bitcoin. Addresses and amounts are public.
- Shielding moves ZEC from a transparent address into a shielded pool. The amount that enters is public.
- Deshielding moves ZEC out of a shielded pool to a transparent address. The amount that leaves is public.
- Shielded to shielded hides the addresses and the amount.
The Zcash docs also say ZEC cannot move directly between two shielded pools without showing the amount. This matters in 2026.
On 29 May 2026, a security researcher found a flaw in the proof circuit of the Orchard pool. The Zcash developers fixed it with an emergency upgrade in the first days of June. They then disclosed that the flaw could have let someone create counterfeit ZEC inside Orchard. They said it affected only Orchard. Sapling and transparent transactions were not affected. They found no evidence that the flaw was used. Because Orchard is private, the chain alone cannot prove this.
A second upgrade followed. Ironwood (NU6.3) activated on 28 July 2026 at block 3,428,143. It closes Orchard to new funds and adds a new shielded pool, also called Ironwood. Funds in Orchard can only leave through the turnstile, into Ironwood or to a transparent address. The amount and the block height of each move are public. Existing addresses keep working, because Ironwood reuses their Orchard receivers.
Unified addresses make shielding easier. A unified address bundles several address types into one string. The official Zcash site says wallets that support them can shield incoming ZEC by default. It also says your address stays shielded when you send from a unified address, whatever address the receiver uses.
To get ZEC, start from swap Bitcoin to Zcash. Our Zcash coin page explains the address types.
Shielded usage in 2026
On 17 September 2026, the official Zcash network page showed a shielded pool size of 4,894,909 ZEC. The same page showed about 16.93 million ZEC in circulation. That puts just under 29% of the ZEC in circulation in shielded pools. ZEC at transparent addresses has public balances.
On the same day, a public Zcash block explorer showed about 0.51 million ZEC in the Sapling pool. It also showed about 0.41 million ZEC still in the old Orchard pool. Those coins can only leave through the turnstile.
Treat these figures as a snapshot. Monero has no matching figure. Every Monero transaction is private, so there is no transparent share to measure.
What each coin still shows
Monero
- Each transaction still appears in a public block.
- A remote node can link your transactions to your IP address. The Monero project advises you to run your own node.
- Anyone with your private view key sees your incoming payments.
- A service that knows your name can still link you to the coins you move there. The Monero FAQ makes this point: a party that has your name and address does not forget them because you used Monero.
Zcash
- Everything at transparent addresses: the addresses, the amounts and the balances.
- Amounts that enter or leave a shielded pool, including moves out of Orchard.
- The fact that a transaction happened, and the fee it paid.
- Your shielded payments, to anyone who holds a viewing key for your address.
A platform may give you a Zcash deposit address that starts with tex. ZIP 320 says a wallet must spend only transparent funds when it sends to a TEX address. If your ZEC is shielded, the wallet first moves it to a temporary transparent address. That step makes the amount public.
Rules and availability
This is general information, not legal advice. In the EU, Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 applies from 10 July 2027. It defines anonymity-enhancing coins as crypto-assets with built-in features that make transfer information anonymous, “either systematically or optionally”. So optional privacy features fall inside the definition. The regulation bars crypto-asset service providers from keeping anonymous accounts, or accounts that allow anonymous or obscured transactions, including through such coins. Its recitals say this ban does not apply to providers of self-hosted wallets that have no access to or control over the wallet.
ZIP 320 shows how a platform can limit shielded deposits. It says the TEX format was written for an exchange that wants each deposit to come from an address it can see on the chain. That way the exchange can send funds back if needed. If a platform you use only accepts transparent ZEC, your deposit amount will be public.
Which one fits you
- Choose Monero if you want privacy on every payment with no setting to get wrong.
- Choose Zcash if you need both modes, for example a public record for some payments and privacy for others. Use a wallet that shields by default, keep your ZEC shielded, and move it between pools as rarely as you can.
- Take care with Zcash when the other side only uses transparent addresses. Your shielded address stays hidden, but the amount you send becomes public when it leaves the pool.
How to swap into either coin
You can get either coin on HiddenSwap with no account and no email. A few things are true for both routes:
- Your Bitcoin deposit is a normal Bitcoin transaction. Bitcoin transactions are public and permanent, and the swap does not change that record.
- The deposit goes to an address controlled by our liquidity partner until your new coins are sent.
- A swap can be held for checks. Read how screening works before you start.
- A floating quote can change before your deposit confirms.
For ZEC, check which address types the swap page accepts before you paste one. If you receive at a transparent address, the payout amount is public. Shielding it later also shows that amount.
For XMR, use a new subaddress from your own wallet for each swap. Your wallet can spend newly received XMR after 10 confirmations, which takes about 20 minutes.