Stephanie Douse 
Privacy coins have risen higher this week in the crypto market amidst diverse market sentiment. As the largest cryptocurrencies Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) fail to show any significant movement this week, the top three privacy coins Monero (XMR), Zcash (ZEC), and Decred (DCR) continue to rise.
Private coins Monero (XMR), Zcash (ZEC), and Decred (DCR) have all risen approximately 7%, 6%, and 20% in the previous 24 hours, indicating that the coins are still in high demand. Monero, Zcash, and Decred have all risen almost 20%, 14%, and 31% in the last 7 days, with prices reaching 2022 highs.
The broader crypto market declined as investors feared more monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve,
Largest Privacy Coins Surge On Network Upgrades
Monero (XMR), the largest privacy coin, has been soaring in the last few days as developers announced the “Fluorine Fermi” upgrade. The upgrade will take place on July 16th at a block height of 2.7 million while the software will be released one month earlier on June 16th. So, users and node operators must update their software prior to the upgrade date.
The version 0.18 upgrade will be used to introduce new features to the Monero network through a hard fork. The Monero network’s base privacy will be improved by increasing the ring size from 11 to 16. Moreover, an upgraded Bulletproofs algorithm will improve transaction size and verification by almost 5-7%. As a result, network transaction time is reduced. In addition, to improve the network’s security and resilience, fee changes will be used as well as the enforcement of view tags to reduce wallet sync time by over 30-40%.
Zcash is also undergoing a major upgrade Network Upgrade 5 between April 19-22 at a block height of 1.8 million. The upgrade will improve the Zcash network’s privacy and scalability. The Halo 2 proving system’s improvement will eliminate trusted setups and proof composition. Furthermore, the transition to a PoS consensus and the implementation of components of the Cosmos infrastructure infrastructure
Decred the top performer
Decred (DCR) prices have soared beyond their peers this week, exceeding the majority of the cryptocurrency market ahead of the key v1.7 upgrade scheduled to take place in early May.
The upgrade aims to boost staking rewards while reducing miners’ pump-and-dump behavior. The mining rewards will be reduced from 60% to 10% as a result of the privacy improvement, while the rewards for proof-of-stake (PoS) validators will be boosted from 30% to 80%. As a result, consumers will be encouraged to keep DCR in their wallets.