Privacy track has recently become popular again. There was a voice in the market that believed the story of ZEC had already been told, but a large whale's massive bet suddenly turned the topic around.

Let's go back to early December. A mysterious whale made a move on HyperLiquid: deposited $4.49 million USDC and directly used 10x leverage to go long on ZEC. That alone is crazy enough. Even crazier was what happened next — when ZEC's price broke through $750, the largest short position holder on the platform not only avoided liquidation but also added $36.81 million in margin within 24 hours, pushing the liquidation price up to $1312. This was no longer just a simple tug-of-war in price but a real war with real money.

So why did ZEC suddenly become so attractive? The key lies in its technical design philosophy. Earlier, the US Department of Justice confiscated $15 billion worth of Bitcoin, which made the market realize a question: Bitcoin claims to be anonymous, but in front of judicial authorities, it is actually transparent. Accounts and transaction paths are fully traceable.

The cleverness of ZEC is right here — it did not adopt Monero's full privacy model but instead chose an "optional privacy" approach. What does this mean? Regulated exchanges can default to turning off privacy features and only allow users to trade with public addresses. This satisfies regulatory requirements while avoiding being delisted by multiple mainstream platforms like Monero. The imagination of privacy still exists, but the shackles of compliance are loosened. It’s a very delicate balance.