Cryptocurrency

Only Five Coins Have Gained Over the Past Year: What Do They Have in Common While Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP Have Plummeted?

Among the largest cryptocurrencies by market value, Zcash (CRYPTO:ZEC), Hyperliquid (CRYPTO:HYPE), Monero (CRYPTO:XMR), NEAR Protocol (CRYPTO:NEAR), and Uniswap (CRYPTO:UNI) are the only coins rising over the past year. In contrast, many popular coins have lost a significant portion of their…

By Sam Daodu
Published October 6, 2026, 10:00am ET · 3 min read

The ETF Examiner desk. Editor: Ryne Mauck.

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Among the largest cryptocurrencies by market value, Zcash (CRYPTO:ZEC), Hyperliquid (CRYPTO:HYPE), Monero (CRYPTO:XMR), NEAR Protocol (CRYPTO:NEAR), and Uniswap (CRYPTO:UNI) are the only coins rising over the past year. In contrast, many popular coins have lost a significant portion of their value.

Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC), as of October 6, 2026, is trading at $85,896, reflecting a decline of about 30% since last year. This drop largely stems from its record high of $126,080 on October 6, 2025. Similarly, Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH) has fallen 40% to $2,704, Solana (CRYPTO:SOL) has dropped 48% to $119, and XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) is down 50%, currently trading at $1.50.

Zcash Leads the Coins Rising Over the Past Year

A close-up photograph of a blue digital screen showing a list of cryptocurrency names: Zcash, Ripple, Bitcoin, and Ethereum, in white text. A faint world map overlay and white grid lines are visible in the background. To the right of the names, green upward-pointing and red downward-pointing triangular arrows indicate market trends.

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Zcash stands out in this group, posting an impressive gain of over 800% to reach $1,344. However, it’s still about 58% below its all-time high, meaning early investors are still feeling the pinch.

Monero, another privacy-focused cryptocurrency, has risen around 66% and is now trading at $558. Hyperliquid, which facilitates futures trading, has appreciated roughly 90% to $93 and is only 5% shy of its peak just under $98.

NEAR Protocol and Uniswap also made the list but with more modest gains. NEAR, which supports applications on its network, saw its token rise 63% to $5, yet it’s still 74% below its 2022 high. Meanwhile, Uniswap, the token of one of the largest decentralized exchanges, gained just 9% to $9, but it remains about 80% below its record high.

The Five Coins Up This Year Do Very Different Jobs

A man in a dark suit stands on the left, looking up at a very tall stack of shiny golden coins on the right. A wooden ladder leans against the coin stack, reaching about two-thirds of its height. A prominent black dollar sign symbol rests on the very top of the coin stack, all set against a plain white background.

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Each of the five coins fulfills a specific function, such as enabling private transactions, facilitating futures trading, hosting applications, or swapping tokens. In contrast, major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP tend to follow broader crypto market trends, leading to speculation that capital has shifted from these larger coins to more specialized ones.

However, NEAR challenges this idea. As a competitor to Ethereum and Solana, which have lost 40% and 48%, respectively, NEAR’s growth suggests factors beyond doing a narrower job are at play.

The privacy coins—Zcash and Monero—appear to share a common theme. While Zcash has outpaced Monero this year, this small sample size makes it hard to establish a solid trend.

Zcash’s 800% Gain Hides How Modest the Other Four Are

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Zcash’s outstanding 800% rise overshadows the other four coins, which recorded gains ranging from 9% to 90%. Without Zcash’s remarkable performance, the rest of the group shows decent growth but does not indicate a dramatic trend.

Moreover, despite these coins’ good fortune this year, all five still trade below their previous all-time highs. Zcash, NEAR, and Uniswap would each need to more than double their current prices to regain those peaks.

What Do the Coins Rising Over the Past Year Have in Common?

Overall, these five cryptocurrencies share little beyond outperforming Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP over the past year. Zcash stands out as an extreme case, while the others share little more than a good run over the same 12 months.

Past performance doesn’t always predict future success. The ongoing performance of the privacy coins will be key: if Zcash and Monero continue to thrive in the coming year while major coins recover, privacy features could gain lasting traction. But if they fall back with Bitcoin and XRP, it could simply show these five coins had a good year without signaling a definitive trend.

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Sam Daodu

Sam Daodu is a crypto analyst who's spent nearly a decade making blockchain understandable—no easy task when most whitepapers read like fever dreams. He writes for 24/7 Wall St., covering Bitcoin, altcoins, and crypto market analysis for investors. Before crypto, he was a tech writer (back when explaining "the cloud" was peak innovation). Since 2018, he's written for CoinTelegraph, Yahoo Finance, The Block, Cryptonews, Zypto, Rain, and more—basically anywhere people want crypto news without the headache. Sam runs MacLabs Marketing, a content agency for crypto brands tired of sounding like AI wrote their website. He also publishes free crypto education on his site for Web3 enthusiasts who think "gas fees" is a typo. When he's not writing or staring at charts, Sam's either: - Watching anime (currently convinced One Piece has better tokenomics than most altcoins) - At the gym sculpting himself into a Greek god - Listening to the music your mum warned you only bad boys listen to Connect: LinkedIn | Email | MacLabs Marketing

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